The foreign ministry will host an exhibition from 12 to 19 November entitled “Friend Iraq: Iraqi artists for the Italian Cooperation”, consisting of 26 panels depicting social, cultural and human aspects of Iraq. The exhibit is being promoted by the DGCS on the 10th anniversary of Italy’s intervention on behalf of the reconstruction of Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and is also a way to commemorate the12 November 2003 tragedy of Nasiriyah that cost the lives of 19 Italians.
The exhibition, organised by the Italian Cooperation’s Task Force on Iraq, was presented to Minister Giulio Terzi and his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari on 18 October at Rome’s MAXXI museum on the occasion of the Joint Italy-Iraqi Commission. The images presented were collected over recent years by a series of Iraqi photographers that included Hamid Safin and Mohammed Sawaf, who had documented Italian Cooperation projects around the country.
Starting 19 November “Open House at the Farnesina”
The exhibit, which is to be presented to the press on 12 November, will be open to the public on 19 November, in parallel with the annual “Open House at the Farnesina”, and will later travel to Iraq.
Italy’s broad-spectrum, multi-sector intervention in Iraq has helped to underpin economic and social growth processes there. This exhibition is intended therefore to illustrate this intervention, whose priority sectors included the preservation of cultural patrimony, healthcare, the development of small and midsized enterprises, agriculture and irrigation.
Beginning with the Provincial Reconstruction Team, our base in Nasiriyah, in the region of the magnificent Ziggurat and the city of Ur, the projects extended to the entire Iraqi national territory and involved the cities of Baghdad and Basra and the Provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan and Nineveh. Special attention was reserved for the difficult conditions of displaced persons and refugees, in addition to the Iraqi Christian community.
