Iraqi-born multimedia artist Luma Jasim, a graduate of the MFA Fine Arts program, uses her work to express her nostalgia and comment on the fate of the country she was forced to leave behind. Through painting, animation, performance, and other art forms, she “explores the relationship between violence, politics, gender, and emotional memory.” Three years after the invasion of Iraq, she emigrated to Istanbul, Turkey. Later she moved to the United States and settled in Boise, Idaho.

Already a practicing artist, Jasim came to Parsons for a master’s in fine arts. While here, she pursued her explorations of trauma and narrative in a variety of media. After graduation, she completed a residency at MASS MoCA and received the 2017 AAF/Seebacher Prize for Fine Arts, presented by the American Austrian Foundation. The following year, she was awarded a Yaddo Art Residency, and her work Frozen Roots was shortlisted for the tenth Passion for Freedom Art Festival in London. In 2019, Jasim was selected as a Storyteller’s Institute fellow. Jasim’s work has been shown in group and solo shows in New York, Boise, and venues around the world.

Jasim is drawn to nontraditional materials such as motor oil and tar, which she uses to symbolize her home. She combines them with photographs and prints to capture her experience. “The living tragedy of Iraq, my home country, generates many of my artistic ideas. Car bombings killed and maimed large numbers of simple, ordinary people in the markets, near schools, where workers gathered, on buses, and by police stations,” says Jasim. “My purpose as an artist is to bear witness to these horrors.”

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