Exhibition: 30 September 2023 – 14 January 2024
Location: Bagdad Café, Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities, Fredsgatan 2, Stockholm

The invisible enemy should not exist (2007–ongoing) by artist Michael Rakowitz is an ongoing commitment to recuperate objects looted from the National Museum of Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003. The material he uses – contemporary Middle Eastern food packaging – references cooking as a symbol of survival, resistance and joy. Through the material the ‘reappeared’ sculptures also become placeholders for Iraqi lives lost during the war.

In the video work The Ballad of Special Ops Cody (2017), the artist reflects on the human and cultural costs of war during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

For the first time in Sweden, Michael Rakowitz’s works are shown together with other displaced Mesopotamian artifacts in the collection of the Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities. Together they reflect shared experiences of place, longing, and belonging from antiquity until today.

Mesopotamia was among the first places where people began to settle, around 12 000 BCE. The people living in the area spoke Sumerian and Akkadian and one of the earliest writing systems – cuneiform writing – was developed in the region (ca. 3500 BCE).

The Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities is the only museum in Sweden with a significant collection of objects from Mesopotamia. Even so, these have not been contextualized in exhibitions in many years. Neither ancient nor modern Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, or Iran is represented in their main exhibitions.

This exhibition is therefore an opportunity to widen the representational scope of the museum and the narratives mediated about the historical and contemporary Middle East in Swedish museums.

Michael Rakowitz (b. 1973) is a Chicago-based Iraqi-American artist. He describes his work as an intersection between problem-solving and troublemaking. Known for his installations, sculptures and multimedia projects where he weaves together complex histories, he shines light on the tense relation between the Global West and the Middle East. Rakowitz highlights both the loss of Middle Eastern cultural heritage and the human suffering imposed by war, political upheaval, and foreign occupation. He strives to complicate the current narrative around cultural heritage, ongoing forces of colonization, as well as colonial- and postcolonial discourses. He touches upon the fraught relationship between preservation and destruction in modern archaeology and cultural heritage work.

Ninhursag Tadaros (b. 1989) is a curator and museum educator based in Sweden. Her academic background is in ancient Near Eastern- and cuneiform studies and heritage management. In her master’s thesis she investigated the possibilities, challenges, and implications of exhibiting ancient artifacts together with contemporary art in museum displays. The exhibition degree project within Curating Art, International Master’s Programme, Stockholm University and made possible with the support of the National Museums of World Culture and Stockholm University.

Maria Dahlström (b. 1975) is a curator at the National Museums of World Culture (NMWC) in Sweden. Since 2008 she has worked with the collections of the four museums that is the NMWC. Now, she is focusing on questions relating to the illicit trafficking of cultural property as well as provenance research and repatriation. Maria Dahlström has an MA in archaeology with focus on classical and East African archaeology.

Nathalie Besèr (b. 1972) is a Swedish journalist and Middle East expert. She has worked as a reporter and Middle East correspondent and is former senior advisor at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and foreign correspondent at TT News Agency.

About the MA

The International Master's Programme in Curating, including Art, Management and Law is a collaboration between Art History at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics and the schools of Business and Law, together with prominent art institutions in Stockholm.

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