At the end of last year, the Milanese photographic artist Armin Linke undertook a trip through Iraq with a group of Italian peace activists. During his travels, he captured moments of everyday life in the region: scenes from a parade in celebration of Saddam Hussein, presents for the President, the modernist monuments that the dictator had erected after the two Gulf wars, views of the country's celebratory and everyday culture, images of men and women, and of a trip on the roads leading to Baghdad.
For some time now, Linke has been working on an extensive archive, a sort of monumental picture atlas dealing with the iconography of the present day. Linke's works could also recently be seen in the context of installations by the group Multiplicity at the Generali Foundation in Vienna and during the springerin symposium »Picture Politics« which took place in December 2002 in Vienna.
A selection of Armin Linke's works can be found in the print edition of springerin 1/03.