It is the final week to see the exhibition of documentary photographs from Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin at Brancolini Grimaldi.
“The Red House” refers to the space under Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist party headquarters that was solitary confinement for Kurdish prisoners. In 1991, the Red House became accessible after the Kurdish uprising.
In 2006 Broomberg and Chanarin visited the prison and came away with this photographic essay. Instead of documenting the conditions and architecture of the facility the pair chose to examine the intimate mark making that the captives produced on the walls of their cells.
This work stands as evidence of the unbreakable human creative spirit. In a horrible place the artists chose to capture the positives. Similar to the inhabitants of the stockade they opted for the joy of imagination and the escape of dream.
Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin
The Red House
30 January – 8 March 2009
Brancolini Grimaldi Contemporary Art
Italy