Title: On the Street - Dans la Rue

Artist: Ali Arkady

Year: 2022

Location / Context: Baghdad & Tikrit Road (Camp Speicher Memorial Expedition), Iraq

Medium: Etchingraphy (original process developed by the artist) on curved cylindrical copper plate, acid-etched transfer, anti-oxidation protective coating, ink-free natural metal patina

Dimensions: Height 16 cm x Diameter 8.5 cm (6.30 x 3.35 in) | Circumference: Approx. 26.7 cm

Edition: Unique piece (1/1)

Price: €2,500

About the Artwork:

"On the Street" is a unique freestanding cylindrical copper sculpture created through "Etchingraphy," an original medium developed by Ali Arkady that bridges documentary photography and raw chemical metallurgy. The work captures a quiet yet profoundly charged street scene in Baghdad: an ordinary man in traditional Iraqi attire crossing an avenue, photographed just as the artist departed on an assignment to Tikrit to document the mass graves of the Camp Speicher massacre committed by ISIS in 2014 at Saddam Hussein’s former presidential palace complex.

Entirely ink-free, the imagery is permanently etched and fused into the copper substrate through controlled acid interaction and spontaneous chemical patination. By forming the copper sheet into a freestanding cylinder, the planar photograph becomes an architectural, three-dimensional monument. The viewer must circle the piece to assemble the narrative, transforming a fleeting civilian encounter into a tactile meditation on survival, public space, and collective national grief.