Mirrors and windows

This a house at the entrance of Bartella, Mosul, Iraq, on August 2017, after the village was liberated from ISIS forces. Until the terrorist’s invasion, the village was populated by a minority Assyrian Christian community. When they arrived, houses were marked with the letter “N”, as it can be show on the picture and families had to flee or die. Terrorists occupied all houses and stole all worth belongings. After the airstrikes started from the coalition forces, this house was destroyed.

This image was taken under the photography concept of a “window” that document and keep on record the history of what all minorities faced after ISIS invasion. I believe my camera and my personal perspective and shooting methods are tools that can be used to display what is ahead, outside the window.

On this picture you can see that the garage door frames the complete internal destruction of this house, and you can even see an extra part from the next neighbor one. It reveals the persecution that happened with Christian minorities in the Nineveh Plains during ISIS occupation, but also the aftermath of this destructive war that brought severe consequences to everybody, even after a supposed victory.

Every family that had their houses marked by ISIS had to decide: to flee, to become part of ISIS Caliphate as new Muslims or to resist and die. “Window” pictures can create empathy and bring you inside this world that is being displayed on the image. The attempt here was to create this connection between the viewer and those who were subjected to that persecution.

Canon t4i – 18mm – f/8 – 1/160.

*Between January 2015 (at the climax of the war) and March 2022), I visited all Christian villages around Mosul and documented the escape and return of Iraqi Christians from their exile on other countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and even Syria.