MATERIAL SPECULATION: ISIS

Morehshin Allahyari (Iran)

WEST WARD WORKS - PART OF THE GROUP EXHIBITION MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY: EXCAVATIONS
Guthrie Street
DD1 5BR

‘Material Speculation: ISIS' by Morehshin Allahyari is a project of 3D modelling and 3D printing focused on the reconstruction of 12 selected (original) artefacts (statues from the Roman period city of Hatra and Assyrian artefacts from Nineveh) that were destroyed by ISIS in 2015. ‘Material Speculation: ISIS’ creates a practical and political possibility for artefact archival, while also proposing 3D printing technology as a tool both for resistance and documentation.

About the Artist:

Morehshin Allahyari (Iran/USA) is an artist, activist, educator, and occasional curator. She is the recipient of the leading global thinkers of 2016 award by Foreign Policy magazine.
Morehshin was born and raised in Iran and moved to the United States in 2007. Her work deals with the political, social, and cultural contradictions we face every day. She thinks about technology as a philosophical toolset to reflect on objects and as a poetic means to document our personal and collective lives struggles in the 21st century. Morehshin is the co-author of The 3D Additivist Cookbook in collaboration with writer/artist Daniel Rourke– (published in December 2016 online in 3DPDF format and in print by the Institute of Networked Cultures). Her modelled, 3D-printed sculptural reconstructions of ancient artefacts destroyed by ISIS, titled Material Speculation: ISIS, have received widespread curatorial and press attention and have been exhibited worldwide.