3. Ameen Mokdad

Ameen Mokdad collected 1000 empty water bottles that littered the streets of Baghdad with his own hands and formed a large sphere from the waste material. This huge plastic ball was returned to the street, placed in the middle of Karada Dajel in front of Ridha Alwan Café and blocking traffic. 1000 IRAQI LIP PRINTS are 1000 pieces of evidence of polluting crime happening every second in Baghdad, the lip prints tracing back to the very DNA of individual involvement. With his intervention, Mokdad wanted to create awareness of the enormous amount of waste in Baghdad’s streets and how this is influenced by our understanding of which spaces we care for and how habits and responsibility for communal spaces are intertwined. The intervention took place on Karada Dajel, a thriving shopping street at the heart of the city of Karada, in front of the art cafe Ridha Alwan, where socially diverse clientele meet under one roof. The spot seemed ideal for eliciting diverse reactions from a mixed crowd in a quite everyday situation. To Mokdad, it was important that the audience comprised inhabitants of Baghdad, who can achieve change if they want.