Encounters on the Tigris -

ENCOUNTERS ON THE TIGRIS

Sherko Abbas

Film (video) – Tigris River, 2022 – 2023

Discover ancient oral traditions increasingly at odds with ecological reality in this three part film documenting the music, myth and religious rituals of communities living along Iraq’s storied river.

Commissioned by Ruya Foundation for World Weather Network; part of the weather station in Tigris River & Mesopotamian Marshes, Iraq – find out more here.

Encounters on the Tigris is a films that trace artist Sherko Abbas’ journey along Iraq’s Tigris River in June and October 2022 in search of its mythical past and present ecological reality. The film presents encounters with different communities who live along the river: with farmers, fishermen, scholars and musicians who share oral histories of the river in the form of songs, anecdotes and stories that reveal how the dramatic effects of climate change across the region are interwoven with the country’s ancient culture and unique historical experience.

ENCOUNTERS ON THE TIGRIS

Beginning in the Kurdish Zakho district of northern Iraq and ending at Al Faw where the river meets the Persian Gulf in the south, Encounters on the Tigris follows a journey taken by artist and filmmaker Sherko Abbas in 2022, along the ancient River Tigris, in search of previously undocumented oral traditions and the ecological knowledge they hold.

Featuring interviews with folklorists, Quranic scholars, musicians and local communities, Abbas captures songs and stories about water that have been transmitted orally from one generation to the next for centuries. At a time when climate change is beginning to have devastating impacts across the region, the film highlights the precarity of communities who depend on the river and the interplay of environmental instability with Iraq’s recent history, revealing ancient cultural traditions increasingly at odds with new ecological realities.