NEEV. Mosul Series 1 (2019)
Mineral ink print on 310 g Fine Art paper
111 × 162.1 cm
BA Collection
Inventory No.: 2019.522.1
The city of Mosul, in northern Iraq, entered the media spotlight in June 2014 when the Islamic State took control of the city. Mosul became the epicenter of executions, persecution, and the destruction of cultural heritage during the war. Despite the city’s liberation in 2015, Mosul remains in ruins, still awaiting reconstruction. This city—with its destruction, its ruins, and its emptiness—was captured through the lens of Basque photographer Begoña Zubero in early 2019.
The series to which the work NEEV. Mosul Series 1 belongs is the result of that project: a vision of a city in slow reconstruction, with rubble, bricks, and excavators lining its streets; with metal rods emerging from the ruins and shop signs suggesting traces of everyday life. In the artist’s own words, “I don’t need current events in the photograph; I’m interested in suggestion. I see the image as a document and also from a plastic and poetic point of view. I’m not talking about the war, but about what happens afterward.” The atmosphere of each photograph, with its brownish, smoke-like light, renders the background indistinct, as if it were a memory of the war, without a horizon. This situation is reflected in details such as landscapes painted onto battered walls or the desolate space of a ravaged library. The fact that there are virtually no people moving through her photographs gives them a sense of atemporality, turning them into more reflective spaces.
Zubero is a Basque photographer whose work addresses historical memory through landscape and architecture, linking the human trace to the spaces she photographs. The places she chooses are of great importance for their testimonial value in events or episodes of historical significance. Throughout her professional career, she has experimented with different visual languages, such as still lifes in the 1990s—after her time in New York—subjective photography, abstraction, and, especially, architectural photography.