Vetera Novis Augere: Latif Al Ani

With the title Vetera Novis Augere - ‘augment the old with the new’ - Latif Al Ani’s exhibition interrogates the complex relationship between past and present. It also inaugurates a transmission process from older to younger generations, revealing a past and visual imagery mostly unknown to Iraqis themselves.

Through the four exhibited series bringing to attention the themes of Architecture, Landscape, as well as illustrating Modernity along with Daily Life and Portrait photography, Latif Al Ani captured, mostly in black and white, the transformations in urban and rural Iraqi society, offering a unique gaze and testimony of the late 50s and early 70s in Iraq. The tragic modern history of Iraq has bared witness to revolutions, coups, wars, and sanctions, interwoven with some brief periods of peace and prosperity. Latif Al Ani captured the optimistic aspects of these periods, showing women at work, girls in gym classes, mechanical engineering students, high-speed urbanization, modern architecture, tall office towers, western tourists strolling through archaeological vestiges… During these two decades, the photographer produced an extensive and invaluable archive and document of a radical shifting socio-political, economical and cultural landscape in Iraq.