Wesaam Al-Badry is an investigative journalist, and interdisciplinary artist working in photography, video installation, sculpture, and painting through interconnected themes of identity, migration, stimulated wars, and the archives. His work focuses on the social and environmental issues in the U.S. Middle East and the North African diaspora. His current projects investigate how the image-based process and text are complicit in using racialized ethnographic studies on Iraq.
WESAAM AL-BADRY
- All
- Al Koture
- Farm Workers Infrared
- From Which I Came
- Lower Mississippi Delta
- Thunderhawk
Farm Workers Infrared
Farm Workers Infrared
Farm Workers Infrared
Farm Workers Infrared
Farm Workers Infrared
Farm Workers Infrared
Farm Workers Infrared
Farm Workers Infrared
Farm Workers Infrared
From Which I Came
From Which I Came
From Which I Came
From Which I Came
From Which I Came
From Which I Came
Lower Mississippi Delta
Lower Mississippi Delta
Lower Mississippi Delta
Lower Mississippi Delta
Lower Mississippi Delta
Lower Mississippi Delta
Lower Mississippi Delta
Lower Mississippi Delta
Lower Mississippi Delta
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Wesaam Al-Badry is an investigative journalist, and interdisciplinary artist working in photography, video installation, sculpture, and painting through interconnected themes of identity, migration, stimulated wars, and the archives. His work focuses on the social and environmental issues in the U.S. Middle East and the North African diaspora. His current projects investigate how the image-based process and text are complicit in using racialized ethnographic studies on Iraq.
His early arduous childhood experiences sculpted Al-Badry’s work, which focuses on imagining the human struggle with dignity, and love.
Al-Badry was born in Nasiriyah, Iraq, when he was seven years old, at the outset of what became known as the Gulf War, his family fled to Saudi Arabia and lived in refugee camps for 4 and half years. In late 1994, Al-Badry and his family were relocated to Lincoln, Nebraska.
Al-Badry has worked for global media outlets, including CNN and Al-Jazeera America. His photographs have been featured in the New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, The Atlantic, NPR, Fortune, The Nation, and Mother Jones. Al-Badry has received The John Collier Jr. Award for Still Photography, Dorothea Lange Fellowship, the Jim Marshall Fellowship for Photography, The National Geographic Society fellowship, Magnum Foundation, and The Emerson Collective, and is currently a fellow at The Center for Visual Documentation. His artwork has been exhibited internationally at museums including the de Young Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco, the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany, Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York City, Bernstein Gallery at Princeton University, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, and Jenkins Johnston Gallery in San Francisco.
He currently resides between Berkeley, CA, and Lincoln, NE. Al-Badry received his master’s in New Media journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.
EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
2022
Paper Chase: Ten Years of Collecting Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Cantor 2021- 2022 – Cantor Art Center, Stanford University, California, US
2021
California: Monument – Minnesota Street Projects, San Francisco
2020
Essential Work – Bernstein Gallery, Princeton University, New Jersey, US
Contemporary Muslim Fashions Virtual Tour, Cooper Hewitt, Contemporary, New York, US
2019
Contemporary Muslim Fashion, Museum Angewandte Kunst, DE
For Freedoms: Where Do We Go from Here – International Center of Photography, NYC, US
2018
We Didn’t Want War – For Freedoms Billboards, Iowa | Ohio, US
Contemporary Muslim Fashion – DeYoung Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco, CA, US
Let Me Be a Witness – Root Division, , San Francisco, CA, US
Keep the Family Close, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, CA, US
2017
Resistors: 50 Years of Social Movements in Photography – Berkeley Art Center, CA, US
Our Sons – SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA, US
A Day in the Races – SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA, US
A Promise Not to Forget – SOMArts, San Francisco, CA, US
SELECT PUBLICATIONS & INTERVIEWS
2023
Reflecting on Iraq War anniversary (interviewed along with Lynsey Addario), CNN
Brief But Spectacluar – PBS News Hour
2021
Strangers No More – PopUp Magazine and Google Year in Search, in select publications, NY Times (NY), NY Times (LA edition), Washington Post, SF Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Detroit Free Press, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Arizona Republic, Atlanta Journal Constitution
2020
The Cycle of Punitive Justice Starts in Schools – Mother Jones,
In California’s Agricultural Heartland, a Mayor IS Running on Compassion – Magnum Foundation
Unsheltered in Place – Mother Jones
In Stockton, a Powerful Program to Prevent Violence – The New York Times
People Supporting the American Fruit and Vegetable Market – Rolling Stone Japan
The Faces Behind the Fresh Fruits and Vegetables America Demands – Rolling Stone
Why the People Harvesting Californians’ Food Can’t Afford It The New York Times
Essential Workers Are Being Treated as Expendable, The Atlantic
Jim Marshall Fellow, Wesaam Al-Badry, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
2019
On College Campuses, Social Media Provides Private Space for Thousands, New York Times
On the Dignity in Suffering – California Magazine
Normalized instead of politicized: The Contemporary Muslim Exhibition – Vogue Germany
2018
Uncovered: From Fashion to Discourse – Museum of Fine Arts San Francisco de Young Magazine
A Yemini – American Wanted to Bring His Family Home, Then Came the Travel Ban – NPR
Mission Possible: Max Hollein on The Museum of Tomorrow – Forbes
The Body Politic in the Age of Trump – The Art Newspaper
2017
Diversity in Photojournalism: ‘Talk is Cheap – New York Times Lens Blog
Photographer Captures Mothers Grieving Sons Lost to Gun Violence – San Francisco Chronicle
After the Shooting: A Year in the Life of Gwen Woods – California Sunday Magazine
2014
On Pine Ridge Reservation Sioux Take a Stand Against Alcoholism – Al-Jazeera America