Rawsht Twana, Twana’s Box – The Photographic life of Twana Abdullah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq 1974-1992, 2024

Twana’s Box – The Photographic Life of Twana Abdullah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq 1974-1992 can be described in many ways: a journey through the rare archive of a photographer who documented the Kurdistan region of Iraq from 1974 to 1992; a son’s search to find his lost father, who was murdered by a military regime; the way a young man pieces together the fragments of a family scattered across a scattered culture; the becoming of a photographer who, through the stories of others, begins to understand his own identity in times of war.

Twana’s Box is not just a photo book that brings together a selection of Twana Abdullah’s archive; it is a unique glimpse into a time and place in a region that has since been completely transformed. Rawsht spent years piecing together his father’s negatives and stories. His archival work inspired him to become a photographer himself, working for Metrography, Iraq’s first independent photo agency, before emigrating to Europe.