Photographer Jim Lommasson had been struggling with a project for six months.
He was taking portraits of refugees at their homes in the U.S., intending to create something similar to his photography/oral history collection, “Exit Wounds: Soldiers’ Stories — Life After Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Something, however, wasn’t working.
Then a woman told him about the items that she had been able to bring with her from Iraq: a family portrait and a Koran. She asked Lommasson to make a copy of the portrait. He obliged, made an extra print, and asked her to write why she brought those items.
“What We Carried: Fragments & Memories from Iraq & Syria” was born.
Lommasson’s ongoing project began in Portland, Oregon, where the photographer is based, but he has since interviewed refugees in various cities across the country. The accompanying photography exhibition has also traveled far, from Boston to Lincoln, Nebraska, to Los Angeles.
“Everybody wants the same thing. We all want safety. We all want a roof over our heads. We want our kids to get an education and want to buy ice cream cones for our kids. Those things are all universal,” says Lommasson by phone.
He continues:
GOOD spoke to Lommasson about a few photographs in the series currently on view in L.A.’s Japanese American National Museum, where the show is positioned to highlight similarities between the experiences of Middle Eastern refugees today and the experiences of Japanese-Americans who were incarcerated during World War II.
We all have had a childhood … But it differs for everyone …
Lommasson: That [used as the featured image above] is one of my favorite pieces. We expect to see teacups and candle holders and carpets and the things that we associate with the Middle East. One of the things that happens is that when we see the Barbies, 50% of the audience probably says, “I had Barbies too.”
So, again, that’s a way of breaking down stereotypes and “othering.” It builds bridges when we see things that are similar.
Lommasson: She left her beautiful home. They had a lot of things like that, from her whole family history. But these cups, her father had purchased a dozen of them (and saucers) before he even met Susan’s mother.
Over time, they lost a few … in travel … and I like the fact that there are six saucers and five cups. She wrapped each of those in her clothes, in her bag, to try to keep them from getting broken. It brings tears to my eyes when I think of that. They’re also beautiful things.
She told me about leaving her home. When she left, she knew that — probably not long after she leaves — somebody else is going to inhabit her house, and they’re going to live with everything that she lived with all of her life, and … that’s the end of everything that’s been familiar to her.
Lommasson: [Haifa’s] an academic, so she brought her books. It’s actually a book that was purchased on Al-Mutanabbi Street, which is the bookseller street in Baghdad that was blown up by a car bomb in 2006; it’s a very important part of Iraqi culture, a gathering place. It was very deliberate when the bookseller street was blown up, and that’s because they’re doing kind of what the German Nazi students did in the ‘30s; they burned books. That’s for a deliberate reason — to destroy culture and history and free thought.
So, that book that she bought on Al-Mutanabbi Street, I photographed it and gave her back the 13” x 19” archival print. I thought she would write around the book, like most people write around the objects; and then she did that beautiful ancient Arabic calligraphy and mushed some paint on the paper. She really turned this simple photograph into its own artifact.
I really feel that all of these photographs have turned into new artifacts by what the participants have hand-generated onto these photographs. When Haifa did that, I realized that this project really can speak in personal ways.
She writes about sorrow — Will my life be like my yesterday, sadness and sorrow? But I also see it as a statement of freedom and looking towards a new life and wondering how it’s going to play out.
Lommasson: Especially for kids that age, the phone is the center of their universe; it’s how they do everything, maintain everything. He showed me his phone and it was turned off.
I said, “Are there any pictures there that you have a real connection to?” and he found that one.
Lommasson: To me, it just shows a sense of humor and being very practical. I don’t think it was created because they didn’t have a rug and they needed material for it. I think it’s represented for a sense of humor.
That’s part of the joy of this project. It’s the unexpected things. When I go to people’s homes, they’re less fortunate than me, mostly. Every time I go, they offer teas and Turkish coffee and pastries. The hospitality is so amazing and it would be an insult to say “No, I’m not hungry,” or “I don’t want to impose.”
The people in this project have really understood the project, what it could be, and how it’s giving a voice to them. I’ve had people say to me that I’m the first American that’s even given them the time of day.
I feel that this, just by the fact that we’re doing it, is important. The fact that it does reach thousands or hundreds of thousands — or maybe even millions — I think that it’s doing more than I ever imagined any project I would do could have.
That’s why we do these things. That’s why I became a photographer in the first place.
Lommasson: That comes from Dr. Baher Butti in Portland. He was a pretty high-level dignitary in Iraq and dealt with bigger issues. He was also eventually put on a kill list and had to leave Iraq.
But, basically, he’s saying: “Americans have an image of us and it isn’t exactly accurate. Here are teachers, dressed in Western clothes. We have an organized society. What you’ve seen are bombed buildings and war, but before that, we had a thriving world.”
Lommasson: That’s another one from Dr. Butti. That’s him and his wife on their honeymoon. I don’t know if they’re on the edge of the Tigris or the Euphrates. He’s basically saying, “I’m nostalgic about the Iraq before Saddam and I’m nostalgic for the Iraq before the 2003 invasion.”
Lommasson: If someone were to come to me and ask me to write on a photograph of one of my objects, I would probably say, “Well, where do I write? Do I use a No. 2 pencil? Should I write these?” The fact that people do things in so many different ways and they write in English or Arabic — to me, every time something unique happens, I love the fact that it’s making this whole project richer.
Lommasson: The family would always save the milk can after using it and freeze water or juice on a hot summer day; the kids would have frozen juice or whatever. Almost every Iraqi who sees that says, “We had that same can. It’s kind of a universal thing.”
Lommasson: That’s the last picture he took in Baghdad as he was leaving his home because he wanted to remember his home. There are so many of these that have had profound effects.
Lommasson: We all have things that a child made for us, whether it’s a birthday card that they drew or whatever.
That’s what this is: an expression of a little girl who is missing her father and how that’s something that’s so important to him. We all have those kinds of things.
Top and share photo by Jim Lommasson, used with permission.