Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz (b. 1973) has an ambitious project: he seeks to preserve stories and memories associated with places and objects that no longer exist. Since 2007, he has worked on reappearing the cultural artifacts lost or destroyed in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Rakowitz highlights the many layered effects of centuries of imperialism and the ways the destruction of art and culture parallel the destruction of life.

The exhibition takes us to the ancient Assyrian Northwest Palace of Kalhu. Rakowitz has recreated a series of reliefs from this palace, built by King Ashurnasirpal II and likely completed between 869 and 865 BCE. Kalhu is the Assyrian name for the ancient city known in English as Nimrud, near present day Mosul, Iraq. The palace had undergone looting and destruction since the 1850s, when British excavators first began removing panels and portions of panels to ship back to the West. It was common practice to saw off the heads of the guardian-figure relief sculptures, since a human face would be the most saleable and desirable to collect. Waves of colonial extraction took place before ISIS destroyed what remained in 2015.

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