Visiting Artist - Wafaa Bilal

Wafaa Bilal is an artist orignating from Iraq, who has relocated to the United States. His controversial work and political views have forced him out of his own country, and often causes complications with his new life in the U.S. Most of Bilals recent work has been in response to the death of his brother and father, and the hardships of the Iraqi citizens. He creates work that revolves around issues of the American occupation in Iraq. His work "Shoot an Iraqi" allowed viewers to log online and shoot him at anytime for 31 days straight. Despite many complications, Bilals site took off and allowed two significant things. One he allowed the viewer to participate in the narrative of his piece and two he crossed over from artist in a gallery to artist in peoples homes across America. The other highly influential piece of work that Bilal has done was his video game "Virtual Jihadi". I found it fascinating that he took a video game that was shared both with American officials and Terrorist alike (the only difference were the characters in the game) and created an inspiring and thought provoking piece that was to show the faults in terrorism of all kinds. Even though the main focus of the game was anti-terrorism, he was unable to show his work due to the controversial nature. This resulted in the rally of "Art is not Terrorism".

As an artist and a person, I am incredibly inspired by the work and work ethic of Wafaa Bilal. His work itself if thought provoking and compelling. He breaks the boundaries of what is acceptable in a post 9-11 country and pushes people out of their comfort zones. I feel that if people could learn to look past the initial title or review of his work they would find that he is making a profound statement on humanity itself . I am also fascinated by his will to not give up on his art. It can be so easy sometimes to get discouraged and give up when someone tells you that you can't do something, but Wafaa Bilal has taken the opposite approach. It seems that no matter how many "you can't do that's" he gets, he still continues to try to get his work out and seen by the world.

Overall I was highly impressed by Wafaa Bilal, the person and the artist. I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to hear him speak and become exposed to his work.