Kurdish photographer Younes Mohammad’s photographs of PeShmerga fighters and refugees convey the barbarity of war while honoring refugee experiences from an insider’s perspective.

Images of refugees are common in worldwide media. Scenes of displaced and traumatized people often serve as sanitized substitutes for footage of the natural or man-made catastrophes that violently interrupt life’s familiar rhythms.

Younes Mohammed knows the precariousness of refugee life first hand. From 1974 to 1998, the Kurdish Iraqi sheltered across the border in Iran. While he was relatively protected from Saddam Hussein’s genocidal purge of ethnic Kurds, Mohammad was estranged from deep cultural and familial roots in his home country. In 2011, he left his job to pursue photography full time.

Open Wounds recounts Mohammed’s work with Peshmerga fighters - those who face death - in the months and years after ISIL rampaged across Iraq and Syria. Comprising harrowing portraits of wounded warriors and scenes of life scratched out from devastation, the series also conveys the photographer’s all too keen understanding of uncertainty amidst conflict.

Mohammed describes working with Peshmerga warriors and their families, why it is crucial for refugees to be seen and their humanity sustained, and what kept him busy during quarantine.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Younes Mohammed