Wafaa Bilal-Lecture Questions/Response

Do you feel as though you have achieved a higher awareness of these unfair issues among the American public as a result of your art, and was that a goal you set out to achieve?

Does making this art help you in grieving for your lost family members, or does it bring up anger or resentment?

Response:
Wafaa Bilal was so much more light-hearted and funny than I thought he would be, considering the serious subject matter of the work. I wish he would have told us more of his background, I am still curious to know how he was trained as an artist and more about his personal family life and how it relates to his art making. I was interested in his idea of connecting with people in their own comfort zones while putting himself out of his, because that mimicked the guilt he felt from being comfortable and helpless in America while his family suffered in Iraq. The videos from the "Shoot an Iraqi" project were the most revealing conceptually to me. He showed us a time when he seemed most vulnerable and run down from the stress of being constantly shot at, I felt myself connecting with the project more personally after that. I became more interested in the artist when he explained the day the paint ball gun malfunctioned and he was alone for the first time in a whole month, just with himself and his thoughts. He talked about how painful those several hours were when he didn't have the distraction of protecting himself anymore and he had to really mentally deal with the death of his father and brother. Even though I didn't initially think I would have much in common with his art, that story deeply related to ideas that I am thinking about now.
My first question was answered through his explanations of protesters and cancellations, of course he raised awareness. It was interesting to hear the Wafaa say he thought of all the reactions to his art as positive when they seemed like such a head ache. My second question wasn't discussed directly but he did talk about dealing with the pain in the last project I discussed.