As the cocreator of an art installation and gathering place in Philadelphia, a doctoral student and Iraqi refugee is both sharing his home culture and exploring the notions of belonging and healing—all while applying what he’s learned at IUP.
Yaroub Al-Obaidi, a student in IUP’s Media and Communication Studies PhD program, has designed a mudhif (Arabic for guesthouse) that sits outside the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. Together, the guesthouse and a gallery component make up the exhibit Al-Mudhif—A Confluence, which runs through the end of October.
Mudhifs are structures that the people of southern Iraq began building from reed grasses more than 5,000 years ago, according to Al-Obaidi, a former lecturer on art and industrial design at the University of Baghdad who came to Philadelphia in 2016. He and his collaborator, Seattle-based environmental artist Sarah Kavage, believe their mudhif is the first to be built outside of Iraq.
While mudhifs have traditionally housed special events, they have also served as meeting places for discussing and resolving differences—a theme the artists introduced at the start of construction in June.
Volunteers who helped with the project included both Iraqi immigrants and veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—a collaboration that promoted healing from the traumas of war and displacement. Programs held in the mudhif throughout the summer and fall—which included a September 11 program for veterans, refugees, and immigrants—maintained that focus on communicating and healing.
Even the construction materials for the guesthouse are tied to the exhibit’s theme. While reed grasses are native to Iraq, the variety used to build the mudhif is non-native to the Delaware River watershed and, in fact, is considered highly invasive. The artists hoped that using this plant in a productive way would offer a different perspective on displacement and on the movement of plants and people.
Al-Obaidi also links the building materials and the project as a whole to lessons he has learned in Communications Media classes. For example, he draws comparisons to communication theorist Marshall McLuhan’s famous phrase, “The medium is the message,” meaning the method of communication is sometimes as important as the message itself.
“I connect my artwork to Marshall McLuhan and his theory when I start to think about the message of the material—reeds—as the first engagement between humans and available material thousands of years ago,” he said.
Al-Obaidi also connects conversations guests have had in the mudhif to sociologist Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding model, which relates to how media messages are produced, disseminated, and interpreted. He believes this knowledge will help him deliver his messages more effectively.
“The Communications Media PhD program has shaped my practice as a social and conceptual artist,” he said.
Learn more about Al-Obaidi and his art installation at “Iraqi Refugee Brings a Piece of His Culture to Philadelphia.”
