In Iraqi artist Sadik Kwaish Alfraji’s five-minute animation The River That Was in the South (all works cited, 2019), things melt into each other with great speed. In one sequence, large-petaled flowers turn into smiling faces, which darken to become sleepy, blinking eyelids. Plucking a single moment from the film is like trying to hold on to running water. Nothing can be separated from what precedes or follows it. Alfraji’s understanding of time is liquid; what has happened in the past continues to bleed into the present. His preferred media-jet-black illustrations and stop-motion shorts made with charcoal, oil, and india ink-suit this well.
Join our mailing list
* denotes required fields
We will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy (available on request). You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.