Exhibition Launch | War in Cities: bringing the reality of war to Melbourne

When wars are fought in cities, they devastate buildings and infrastructure, they endanger the lives of civilians. And even after the fighting ends, the effects last for decades.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is bringing the War in Cities exhibit to Melbourne. A powerful new commission from artist Marwa Charmand joins the exhibition, showcasing human stories from conflict.

Join Australian Red Cross to launch the exhibition in conversation with Dr Michelle Lesh, artist Marwa Charmand and people directly impacted by war in their home cities. Light canapes and drinks will be served following the discussion.

• Dr Michelle Lesh is a Visiting Scholar at Melbourne Law School's Institute for International Law and the Humanities. She is teaching International Humanitarian Law in the Melbourne Law Masters program and has taught Principles of Public Law in the JD program. At the London School of Economics summer school she taught international criminal law. Michelle has a PhD in international law from the University of Melbourne and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At the United Nations, Michelle worked as an international lawyer on a UN Commission of Inquiry and for the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory. She has clerked for Israel’s former Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak and worked at the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem She was the principal researcher for the Turkel Commission on investigating alleged violations of the law of armed conflict and an assistant to Roy Schondorf, Israel’s Deputy Attorney General for International Law. Her research interests include the humanitarian drive of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law, specifically in the context of targeted killings and accountability.
• Marwa Charmand is a Western Sydney visual artist, graphic designer and teacher. For over a decade she has dedicated her artist career focusing on communities affected by war. Her aim is to bring the global urban warfare right to the doorstep of audiences who are geographically removed from conflict and many of whom have never experienced it.

The Exhibition

What happens when war quite literally knocks at the door of your apartment? The horrors of being trapped in a city at war are manifold: the water stops flowing, the light and heating go off, windows are shattered by shock waves from nearby explosions, food becomes scarce, and life turns into a constant struggle to survive. Unearthing new strength from within becomes a new way of life as routine things like having clean water can be an unrelenting challenge.

In 2017, ICRC colleagues in Iraq collected objects from areas they visited just after the fighting had stopped as they brought relief or family news to survivors. The request was unusual and it took a few trips to identify, photograph and collect these items from the destroyed cities of Baiji and Ramadi. With the authorization of their owners or the local community, these objects were collected from destroyed buildings that had just been cleared of explosives, from the streets and from a school left in ruins.

Objects collected from battlefields, historical and contemporary audiovisual materials from the ICRC tell a story about the staggering toll of urban warfare on people, the humanitarian needs that arise, and people's resilience.

A work by artist Marwa Charmand will also be at the exhibition, showcasing portraits and photos from populated areas around the world that are impacted by conflict.