NADA New York 2023

The South Ivan Series is an extension of Morehshin’s “Material Speculation: ISIS” series. The three heads in the series are reproductions of reliefs that were originally located at the ruins of Hatra, an ancient city in Iraq (image here) in South Ivan. Hatra was one of the ancient sites targeted by ISIS, and in 2015 a video was released of a fighter shooting these heads with an AK-47. These heads were above ground and visible in ancient times. They survived for thousands of years in the open air. Gertrude Bell photographed them in April 1911 before major excavations took place at Hatra. Each dead drop contains a USB drive, which the viewer can connect to in order to download Morehshin’s openly available research material (images, maps, pdf files, and videos) in addition to the 3D printable object file of the piece King Uthal, one of the reconstructions from her “Material Speculation: Isis” series.