Iraqi artist in exile, MOHAMMED AL-SHAMMAREY: My videos interact, metaphorically, with my homeland and with my life. So, with The Game my intention was to play a game with kings, queens, rooks, pawns, bishops, and knights, each piece lined up and prepared for a battle. I didn’t play with the black or the white pieces; neither the pawns nor the bishops moved. Even the squares of the board do not appear until the end of the video as a result of a fire that devoured all the pieces. What I saw in the chess pieces was the way they lined up, and that’s what I maintained. It is not a chess game but a game of war and destruction and fire. All this was taking place in my country. An American journalist asked my friend and art critic Suhail Sami Nader in the early days of the occupation, “Why do you fear the Americans?” Sami answered, “Because we have seen them do shocking things so far, and we are worried that they will lead us and lead themselves to a conclusion similar to Melville’s Moby Dick: the ship and everyone on board are lost, the whale is killed, and Captain Ahab is dead after a grudge-fueled chase.”
Chess By Mohammed Al Shammarey 2007 from mohammed al shammarey on Vimeo.