Badass Baghdad Murals

Baghdad Murals
Image by: Joe Carr

It’s always a testament to human nature’s creative tendencies when, even in war torn areas, people club together to produce great works of public art. In Baghdad, in an effort to reintroduce color into an area that was once covered in lush green vegetation, artists of all ages are decorating the concrete security barricades with elaborate murals.

Part of a multi-national $100,000 project to improve the Sadr City area, the project employs local artists and students to depict Iraq’s diverse culture and heritage. The artists are deliberately choosing not to paint political scenes, representing instead stories from Arab myth and legend or how the city used to look at a time when it was home to one of the Wonders of the Ancient World, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon.