A Project By Journalist Zelie Pollon and Photographer Laurent Guerin

Last September we left for Iraq to document the lives and voices of one hundred Iraqi citizens. We had previously worked together on stories for the mainstream media and both felt that something was missing from the coverage of the war on Iraq - namely the views of the Iraqi people.

Our project was based loosely on the New York Times’ series, Portraits of Grief, which honored each victim who died in the Trade Towers collapse. In the same way, we wanted to honor the people of Iraq. Our feeling was that by capturing the details of people’s lives, and their first person perspectives on the war, Americans might find common elements and experiences, and better identify with their foreign neighbors.

We formed a non-profit organization, I Witness, Inc., and began collecting donations for The Baghdad Project: One Hundred Voices and One Hundred Faces To Tell You A Story About War.

On Sept. 10, 2003, we left for Iraq with no political agenda, but to hear what Iraqis had to say in their own words. We worked with a translator and chose our subjects randomly often stopping in the middle of a street to interview a passerby. Other times we worked strategically, trying for an equal mixture of Sunni and Shiite, Christian and Kurdish, rich and poor, male and female, etc. During our month and a half stay, primarily in Baghdad, we asked each person interviewed the same five questions: How do you feel about the Americans coming in?; what is your dream for the future of Iraq?; what is your dream for yourself and your family?; what is your most important or meaningful memory of the past ten years, good or bad?; and what does it mean to be Iraqi today? Sometimes we asked who should lead Iraq and what freedom or democracy meant to them.

For the hundred and thirty people eventually interviewed, we heard as many different stories. Some people felt liberated and ecstatic; others felt invaded, humiliated and destroyed in what they called America’s war for oil. Some praised Bush while others wished only for Saddam’s return. The most marked responses were those in the middle, not because of what was said, but because of the layers of gray they conveyed: the confusion, the contradiction and the simultaneous fear and hope.

We found an Iraq suspended from its everyday life; an Iraq waiting and unsure of its future; an Iraq afraid to dream and anxious about a tide of fundamentalism flowing into its once secular society.

From the interviews we learned that there are no simple answers for the situation in Iraq, and there is no single interview that tells its story.

Some of these stories are dramatic and disturbing. Others are simple. This project should be looked at as a whole, each piece adding to a picture of a country and a people who have lived and survived through decades of war, dictatorship and an embargo. Like pointillism, in which millions of dots make up a single image, The Baghdad Project also works to create a larger portrait from the many faces of those who are living in Iraq and those who hold its history.

Our ultimate goal is to create an exhibit that will travel the country educating people about Iraqi lives and war. Only independent journalism provides such in depth perspectives and we hope that you will support the completion of The Baghdad Project and encourage an exhibit in your area!

- Zelie Pollon and Laurent Guerin