IRAQ / USA

RETURN, 2004. Video, 20 minutes.

Letter to an Encyclopedic Museum Curator, 2020 - ongoing. Video-letter,

10 minutes 43 seconds.

RETURN documents the events from 2006 when the artist attempted for the first time in 25 years to import Iraqi dates to the US. Despite the cessation of UN sanctions, no Products of Iraq were available there. His storefront became a place where the Iraqi refugee crisis was disseminated through the dates' tumultuous journey. After the shipment spoiled in Syria, 10 boxes were airlifted to NYC. The parcel underwent inspection by Homeland Security and finally reached the store, where customers flocked, eager to haste the fruit that had interrogated and scandalised

govemment agencies from Baghdad to New York. A fruit that asked questions.

Letter to an Encyclopedic Museum Curator is drafted against the context of the 7000+ archeological artefacts looted from the National Museum of Iraq during the 2003 US invasion as well as the archaeological sites subsequently destroyed by ISIS in 2015. Acknowledging the continued history of displace ment in raq, the letter offers a ransom that makes these loots reappear in a bid towards restitution.