Falah is a Yazidi artist currently living in an IDP camp in Iraqi Kurdistan. He has lived in the camp by ISIS in the summer of 2014, a moment which marked the beginning of the latest genocide in his community’s long history of persecution and suffering. In the difficult conditions of the camp he has fashioned a new career for himself as an artist, adopting the pseudonym Falah Al-Rasam (the Painter). He has now sold several paintings and grown an online following for his artwork, even though he produced primarily written works before the terrible upheavals of 2014. “At that time I wrote poetry and stories about Yazidis,” says Falah, “but I prefer doing art, I see myself in art more than writing.”

In Sinjar in 2014, an anxious period awaiting an attack by ISIS culminated in the offensive of 3 August. Falah, his parents, and his five siblings were able to escape the following day, all together in one vehicle passing through checkpoints as ISIS militants fought Syrian-Kurdish forces near the border town of Rabia. While some of his family members have since moved to the Duhok region, Falah continues to live in the IDP camp, but a chance encounter in 2018 with an American woman living in his family’s village allowed him to realise his artistic potential. She brought paints and art supplies from Duhok and encouraged Falah to try his hand at oil painting, a skill he has quickly developed. Like his fellow Yazidi artists, Falah comments on the lack of opportunities in Sinjar before the crisis: “People didn’t care about art; actually, I didn’t care about art before 2014. Resources were very poor, and my vision to be an artist was poor.”

Falah’s literary background and experience in writing poetry and short stories inspires his art. He has read widely from French, English, and Arabic literature, and he is inspired by religious and philosophical works and authors such as Kahlil Gibran: “They taught me to understand life in a philosophical way, to understand life more”, says Falah. He now wants to deliver a message to the world through his artwork: “I have a strong desire to do something positive. Sometimes I look at the paintings and feel very happy that I have done that.” His own favourite painting depicts a famous photo of Yazidi female fighter carrying a weapon, in Sinjar in 2014. The woman is shown on a road leading to Yazidi villages, standing ready to defend her community. Falah painted this subject from a photograph and comments that the picture as a whole reflects those dark times.

Another untitled painting shows a young Yazidi girl in an IDP camp. Falah took photographs of her in 2019, just after she had been released following four years in captivity with her mother and siblings, and with her father still missing. In this work he has focused on the child’s innocent but emotional expression, hoping to convey to the world the stark reality of what has happened to such victims. Above all, Falah wants to secure the right for his people to live peacefully: “We want other nations and religions to live in peace and we want others to do that for us.” His message to the UN and other authorities is that the Yazidis need real deeds and not just promises, and that there should be greater transparency when it comes to international aid: “We want them to put the money in safe hands without corruption, and we want them to be careful about where the money is going.”