Iraqi Storytelling Matters: Quskhon

The Quskhon is a central figure of storytelling in Iraq, weaving tales that captivate audiences and ensuring that oral traditions are passed down to future generations, for them to continue to connect the past with the present. Following the recent passing of "Abu Tahseen" last year, Creative Iraq's collaboration with Aziza and Ola Library sought to bring engaging activities to a group of passionate storytellers who were keen to discover the past so they can tell their future.

Kicking off the workshop with the unconventional icebreaker “stories from rooftops,” our group of participants reminisced on how Iraqis used to sleep on the rooftops of their houses, telling stories to each other all night during hot summer nights of electricity outages, another period of Iraq's long history with storytelling. Aziza founder, Mina Jamal, opened a discussion on “investing in emotions” and how it relates to storytelling, presenting examples from Game of Thrones to Rob Walker's “Significant Objects” marketing stunt. She presented the first exercise which was based on Gary Dahl’s “the pet rock”, in this exercise participants were given pictures of “useless objects” and were told to come up with creative ways to sell them using storytelling alone. I think we can all feel how storytelling in the marketing and advertising world can have a profound impact on the way we think and consume.

Creative Iraq’s Ali Raid discussed the basis of writing a good story, providing examples from Iraq’s reading curriculum used in the first Elementary year of schools to teach children how to read to further involve aspects of Iraqi heritage and culture. He followed on by tips and tricks on storytelling which involved showing not telling, how to write an introduction, how to use dialogue effectively, which led to the second activity. “Gumaydhan” is the Iraqi version of “Marco Polo” , almost every Iraqi child has played it! In Quskhon, the participants were given pieces of paper with character description and a phrase, they then were blindfolded and were instructed to act out the character and the phrase using only their voice. Participants were blindfolded so as to break the barrier of shyness knowing no one can see them.

Participants then explored the legacy of storytelling in Iraq, from the ancient epic of Gilgamesh through to the Abbasid tradition that popularised the Quskhon. We took a moment to reflect on the fact that most Quskhon were male, yet one female stands out across history, immortalised today on the banks of the Tigris by Mohammed Ghani Hikmet, Sherezade and her 1001 Nights. Her tales elevate the importance of Baghdad during the Abbasid era, combining magical tales with mythological beasts, quests and historic figures. Cultural diffusion through the silk road trade networks has created a book that captures the imagination by any who reads it, and its popularisation across the world has resulted in countless illustrations, paintings, films, operas, even ballet.

From Galland’s collection of these stories, to Dalziel’s inaccurate illustrative adaptations ( see our article here) to the alterations by Hollywood from the nineties till the recent Aladdin film in 2019. Whilst each have their beauty and value, it was obvious that in today's society, we discusseed the absence of an Iraq narrative. All this discussion led to an important topic, Iraqi narrative, the importance of Iraqis to tell their own stories and accurate representation of Iraqi cultures which was the central theme of our final exercise of the day “Make them Talk Iraqi!” Here participants were provided with Western designed comics from that depicted Iraqi culture in a cartoonish way. We erased the English text in the dialogue bubble and encourage the participants to put Iraqi dialogue spinning the comic into an 'Iraqified' version which discussed relevant political and cultural topics. A stark contrast to how Marvel has represented Iraq in the past - find out more here!

With the participants feeling motivated, inspired and full of creative ideas, the final assignment was set, to take one of Dalziel's nineteenth century illustrations and create an entirely new story based on the image, emphasing the power of visual storytelling in the absence of context. Guided over the week through the support of Ali and Mena, and using their writing guide, their assignments resulted in a final presentation of their concepts. Each presenting, we were introducing to complete re-imaginings of classic 1001 tales through traditional Quskhon styles and others with the inclusion of AI generated images, eliciting a wider conversation of the potential misrepresentation of Iraqi storytelling in the absence of online local voices.

“This is the first time I attend a workshop with this amount of activities and engaging content! I’ve learned a lot about storytelling and how it is essential for heritage and culture” said Murtadha Hussein who had joined the session. It was clear from the feedback that providing interactive content alongside art, history, and culture is something that is desired by members of the community. Creative Iraq and Aziza are here to keep that opportunity available!

It is unescapable, storytelling is part of our daily lives; from the way we interpret a photo or view an advert, to the way we reflect on global events. It is one of the oldest human practices and it continues to evolve with us, with the advent of AI, whole new stories can be created harvested by data collected online. But with a disparity of narratives on online source material may project a continued bias - local storytelling will balance that, strengthening the agency of voices. This is why, now it is more vital than ever to keep storytelling skills alive, whilst incorporating critical analysis skills, to ensure that what happened in the past, plays a part in our shared futures.