Wafaa Bilal was born in Najaf, Iraq in 1966.
An artist and Assistant Professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Bilal received wide recognition for his interactive performance piece Domestic Tension. For one month, he lived alone in a cell-sized room where a remote-controlled paintball gun made it possible for a virtual audience to fire at him 24 hours a day. He was awarded the Chicago Tribune’s Artist of the Year Award for his work on the project.
The book Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun, on which Bilal collaborated with Kari Lydersen, was published in 2008. It chronicles Bilal’s experiences creating Domestic Tension, augmented with commentary on the history of and current political situation in Iraq.
Bilal has exhibited his art worldwide, and traveled and lectured extensively on the situation of the Iraqi people and the need for peaceful conflict resolution.
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