#basra

Afifa Aleiby, the Model and the Dwarf, 1986. Courtesy of the artist.

Afifa Aleiby (born 1952, Basra) grew up in a family devoted to culture and the arts where she painted from an early age. She studied at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad and worked as an illustrator for the Iraqi press. In 1974, she left Iraq for the Soviet Union to study at the Surikov Institute in Moscow. In 1981, unable to return to Iraq due to the political situation, she moved to Italy and later to Yemen, where she taught at the Institute of Fine Arts in Aden. Aleiby has contributed to cultural activities in support of the Iraqi and international democratic movements, and in the struggle against terrorism, racism, war and dictatorship. She has participated in numerous art exhibitions, from Baghdad and Moscow to Yemen, Italy, Syria, Lebanon, England and the United States. Aleiby has been living and working in the Netherlands since the mid 1990s. The Museum Catharinagasthuis in Gouda presented a retrospective of her work in 1999, and she exhibits periodically with the De Twee Pauwen gallery in The Hague. https://ruyafoundation.org/en/2017/01/4291/

[you can hear a knock on the door, and then a voice calling out]

“There are cats outside the door, it’s up to you what you do next. One of them has a bag (?) of sorts, seems like they’re here to deliver something” -🌗🗡️ (aka @basra-of-the-crows)

[gerry shrugs. he opens the door.]

“That’s me!… I’m sorry do I know you…? Is Vex alright? Is- is this about the facility (?) thing??? “

[Basra can be seen getting increasingly more worried by the second]

Earthenware bowl with rooster and fish, Basra, Iraq, 900s CE, Abbasid period

"One of the most significant innovations attributed to ninth-century potters working in Basra was the application of luster painting to ceramics. In this failure-prone technique, the artist painted a mixture of metal oxides onto an already fired and glazed surface. The vessel was then fired a second time in a kiln with a low-oxygen atmosphere. If all went right, the design was deposited on the glaze as an irides¬cent stain, imperceptible to the touch. Probably the costliest product of the Basra kilns, lusterware was widely exported and imitated. Knowledge of the luster technique gradually spread both eastward into Iran and westward as far as Spain."

Ancient Mesopotamian boats return to the waters of Iraq's Basra, June 12, 2025