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The fate of Iraq’s Mesopotamian Marshes has always been closely linked to efforts to modernise the country, control its cities and rivers, exploit its oil resources, and industrialise its agriculture.
Dams recently built by neighbouring countries at the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have reduced the levels of fresh water flowing into Iraq, compromising the delicate ecosystem of that wetland region.
Largely inspired by Return to the Marshes, a 1977 photobook by British photojournalists Gavin Young and Nik Wheeler, Iraqi Canadian photographer Tamara Abdul Hadi is revisiting and capturing new photographs of the Southern Iraqi Marshes in her latest project, Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes.
In this project, she engages with the legacy of Young and Wheeler’s book, focusing on what has been omitted in the representation of the Southern Iraqi Marshes, both past and present.
Through her work, she addresses environmental transformations and highlights aspects of Iraqi culture that have been preserved despite urbanisation and globalisation.
Tamara Abdul Hadi, Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes, 2018–ongoing. Courtesy of Tamara Abdul Hadi
Part archival project and part storytelling, Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes presents Tamara’s more recent photographs and a video of the Marshes, alongside archival photographs collected from Iraqis, in conversation with one another.
For her project, Tamara has also created digital interventions that layer new meaning over Young and Wheeler’s original pages, responding to the question: “Can histories be colonised even in imagination?”
The project also includes a community engagement component, featuring interviews and writings from young Ahwari activists (activists “from the Ahwar,” Arabic for Marshes).
Reviving memory
Works from Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes are on display in the Instructional Centre Vitrines at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) campus until 11 May 2025. The exhibition is staged by the Doris McCarthy Gallery and presented as part of the 2024-2025 Jackman Humanities Institute Artist-in-Residence programme.
“Return to the Marshes is a photobook I found in my family home library, and one that had a profound effect on me and my visual imagination. I consider it one of the two books that made me become a photographer. The other is Iraq: The Land and the people by N. Ramzi, published in 1989,” says Tamara in an interview with The New Arab.
Tamara Abdul Hadi, Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes, 2018–ongoing. Courtesy of Tamara Abdul Hadi
As a child born in the UAE and raised in Canada within the Iraqi diaspora, Tamara did not have the opportunity to visit the Marshes and meet its people until 2018.
“Wheeler’s photographs became part of my imagination and eventually a memory of that region, until the conditions allowed me to visit the Ahwar for the first time in 2018. Although I had been to Iraq previously, that for me was like a dream coming true,” Tamara says. “What captivated me about the Iraqi marshes region was its people and their way of living, often not too different from centuries ago. And also their generosity and welcoming attitude when I was photographing and spending time with them.”
Around 2020, Tamara began critically engaging with Young and Wheeler’s photographic representations of the Iraqi Marshes. This led her to launch a crowdsourcing campaign on Instagram, aimed at collecting more images of the marshes from Iraqis both in Iraq and across the diaspora.
In Tamara’s words, “The response was overwhelming.” She adds, “I could create a small archive with the pictures I received. There were pictures from grandfathers and grandmothers, documenting life in the late 1970s,” which she collected to include in her project.
A curious and careful gaze
As is known, water holds significant cultural importance in Iraq. The population living in the Iraqi Marshes has hunted and fished there for over 5,000 years, bred and raised water buffalo, and built villages of houses made from woven reeds standing on small islands.
Over the years, however, the Ahwaris have drastically diminished, threatened by climate change, pollution, neglect, and conflicts that have affected the region, beginning with the Iran–Iraq War from 1980 to 1988. This continued until the 2000s, when there was a partial restoration by the government and locals alike, wishing to return.
In this vein, the project Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes establishes a new record for posterity and promotes a decolonial visuality that speaks to today’s younger generations.
Tamara Abdul Hadi, Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes, 2018–ongoing. Courtesy of Tamara Abdul Hadi
Since 2016, both the Mesopotamian marshlands and the culture of the Ahwaris living there have held UNESCO World Heritage status. However, the marshlands continue to dry out. According to the latest estimates, the Iraqi Marshes still cover only 4,000 sq. km (1,500 sq. mi).
Today, the Iraqi Marshes, which are home to the culture of the Ahwaris and host indigenous species of birds and plants, have become a destination for tourists. However, the Ahwaris remain a marginalised community born out of racial inequality in a geographical location with low economic development.
Tamara imagines new ways of storytelling through photography for the Ahwaris. “As someone who grew up in the diaspora, I am always aware of my positionality. My gaze has become more critical as I have grown up as a photographer. Mine is a curious and careful gaze,” she says.
Looking ahead, the Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes project will culminate in a photobook, set to be published in 2025, designed and conceptualised by Tamara in collaboration with Roï Saade, a photobook designer, publisher, and Tamara’s creative partner.
Beginning her career as a photojournalist, Tamara’s work has been published in major outlets such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She was also a founding member of the now-inactive Rawi’ya Collective, an influential all-female photo collective in the Middle East.
Tamara’s success has earned her an Artist-in-Residence fellowship at the University of Toronto, where she teaches photojournalism, and her work has been exhibited globally, with her debut monograph, Picture an Arab Man, published in 2022.
Elisa Pierandrei is an Italian journalist and author based in Milan. She writes and researches stories across art, literature, and the visual media. Elisa holds a master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the American University in Cairo (2002), after graduating in Arabic Language and Literature at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice (1998).
Follow her on X: @ShotOfWhisky
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