note(book)sCurated by Damir ŠagoljWARM Foundation
note(book)s is a growing, living archive of original notebooks used by journalists, writers, and artists while reporting from conflict zones and crisis areas around the world. The project was launched by the WARM Foundation in 2024, with its first major public exhibition opening in Sarajevo during WARM Festival 2025. The collection will continue to expand with new contributions from the field, offering a raw, intimate, and enduring view into the work of those who report, witness, and remember.
Participating Authors: Jon Lee Andreson, Pascale Bourgaux, Fabio Bucciarelli, Enrico Dagnino, Agnes Dherbeys, Javier Espinosa, Alixandra Fazzina, Jean Hatzfeld, Noriko Hayashi, Cecile Hennion, Carol Isoux, Katia Jarjoura, Adrien Jaulmes, Gary Knight, Olga Kravets, Andrew RC Marshall, Sophie Nivelle-Cardinale, Rémy Ourdan, Scott Peterson, Elizabeth Rubin, Jerome Sessini, Kurt Schork, Damir Šagolj, Ed Vulliamy, Alfred Yaghobzadeh, Rafael Yaghobzadeh.
'War, Statue and Flag'Rémy OurdanIraq, 2003
The day of the fall of Baghdad, on 9th April 2003, as I was covering the Iraqi side, I walked through Baghdad towards American lines and met colonel Bryan McCoy, commander of the 3rd battalion 4th Marines. The colonel de- cided to take the city center. “So, Remy, where is the damn Palestine hotel?”, he screamed.
There, on Firdos square, he ordered his men to help the Iraqis take down
the symbolic statue of Saddam Hussein. The soldiers first covered it with an American flag, saying it was coming from the rubbles of the Pentagon on 9/11. The event became the fall of Baghdad.
In the following months, I went down the road used by the 3/4 Marines. The way the unit had behaved turned out to be a perfect example of a useless killing of civilians. Years later, travelling through the US, I visited a former officer, Tim McLaughlin, who was allegedly the owner of the flag. He laughed. The flag was offered to him by a girlfriend and had nothing to do with 9/11.