Related works within the They Were Here project:
> Unfitted
> Patterns
“Even the Sumerians would have abandoned their civilization and fled if they faced today’s realities.”
They Were Here explores how the persistent tension between war and peace shapes identity across generations, using Iraq as a point of departure.
The work briefly reaches back to the Sumerian city of Ur and the Standard of Ur (c. 2600 BCE), an artifact structured around two opposing states: war and peace. This reference functions as a symbolic framework for understanding how societies are continually shaped by this unstable balance.
At the center of the installation stands Abandoned Relic: a one-to-one replica of the Standard of Ur, reimagined as a deserted object. Placed on a large table covered with clay and sand, it carries only the faint traces of figures that once moved across it. The table suggests the passage of time, while the emptied object proposes a hypothesis: that if the Sumerians were living today, they too would have chosen to abandon their civilization and flee.
The missing figures reappear elsewhere in the installation, no longer part of a fixed narrative. Small sculpted bodies move away from the object and across a surface, leaving behind traces of their passage.
This idea unfolds further in Unfitted, a video work that follows a tailor measuring the fleeing figurines. His careful, repetitive gestures mirror the quiet labor of adaptation—altering the body, adjusting appearance, reshaping identity in order to blend into new surroundings. Tailoring becomes a metaphor for survival.
In Patterns, miniature garment templates designed for the figurines appear as paper cut-outs dispersed throughout the space. These fragile forms extend the narrative into the gallery, revealing identity as provisional and continually reassembled. Together, the abandoned relic, the moving images, the patterns, and the scattered traces form an environment where past and present overlap, and where identity is shaped through loss, transformation, and reinvention.
Detail views
Details:
- Mixed media installation
- Ceramic & natural stone
- Wooden box
- Dim.: 49.5 x 21.6 cm
- Figurine: resin sculptures
- Dim. vary: 5.5 cm and 6.5 cm
- miniature paper garment pattern
- 2 Panels: 150 x 77 cm
- 2 panels: 50 x 77 cm
- Video du.r: 04:59:06 min
- 4K | stereo | 16:9
- Dop: Anton Demerjian
- With thanks to Laura Boushnak