Wafaa Bilal, "Rendering of Canto III" (2024) (© Wafaa Bilal, courtesy the artist)
“More than two decades after the American invasion of Iraq, to see mostly young non-Arab Americans readily perform this gesture of supplication to an iconic symbol of Iraqi cultural heritage makes me think that perhaps this country has forgotten its devastating entanglement with Iraq after all. Bilal, of course, cannot.”