Photographer Eugenie Dolberg ran the OPEN SHUTTERS IRAQ project in 2006/7, at the height of the murderous sectarian violence in Iraq. Over the course of three months, women from five cities in Iraq learned about photography, told each other their life stories, and produced a remarkable and unique body of photographic and written work.

The book includes eight of their photographic essays and a series of evocative single pictures. The intersection of the contemporary history of Iraq and the individual lived experience women there emerges through their tales of war, sanctions, uprisings, siege, kidnapping, grief, love, happiness, times of resistance, achievements and small triumphs.