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Windows to the Past

2024

Animation/Augmented reality installations

 

 

 

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Prompted by the effects of immigration, the project I am proposing, entitled Windows to the Past, addresses my desire to reconnect with a home from the past, as an Iraqi in the diaspora. Inspired by the traditional courtyard houses of Iraq, the project transports a parcel of my family’s history to the present. These houses, locally referred to in Iraq as “Shanasheel”, were home to the generations that preceded me for decades. These special houses allowed the inhabitants at the time to form a tight knit community, yet maintain privacy. They are an important example of vernacular architecture within the region, and feature unique architectural elements that act as a threshold between the inhabitants and nature, between the human and the cosmos. 

As an immigrant who grew up away from Iraq, I feel excluded from having experienced these houses, as my only connection to them now are the stories told by my parents and family elders. As I reconstruct traces of the architectural elements that reflect the daily life of my ancestors, I offer myself, as well as viewers of the work, a glimpse of what inhabiting them might have felt like.

​This project was generously funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. Special thanks to Salman Dalla-Ali for creating the animation's original soundtrack. 

​View the 3D models and try them in AR below! (available until January 16, 2024)​

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