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US artist Michael Rakowitz builds colourful likenesses from Arabic food packaging of artefacts lost or destroyed in Iraq’s recent past.

This project has been running for the past 12 years, and like many of Rakowitz’s works, draws on his Iraqi heritage. Titled ‘The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist’, it began with recreating objects looted from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, shortly after the US-led Invasion of 2003. It has since expanded to include archaeological sites and artefacts destroyed by the Islamic State Group.

Michael is currently remaking, room by room, the Northwest Palace of Nimrud, a 3000 year old archaeological site destroyed by the Islamic State Group in 2015, focussing on carved reliefs of genies and other ancient symbolism which adorned the palace walls, for an exhibition in Chicago this November.

(Image: Michael Rakowitz: The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist (Room Z, Northwest Palace of Nimrud), Installation view, Rhona Hoffman Gallery. Photo: Tom Van Eynde. Courtesy of the artist. Cropped detail.)

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