10 bronze sculptures, textiles and wood
Project realiseD with the support of Italian Council (2022)

Sum of the misdeeds and consents and cowardly acts is an installation of ten bronze birds that in- habit Iraq, cast into weights. All the represented birds are designated as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered on The International Un- ion for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. This list accounts for the health of the world’s biodiversity and is also an essential resource for conservationists. Some of the birds in the installation are dependent on Iraq’s marshlands, and the drainage of their areas over decades for political aims has compromised their habitats.

All the birds are cast in resting poses and in different sizes and weights; the largest/heaviest is the most critically endangered, and the small- est/lightest is the least endangered or vulnerable, according to the Red List. From largest to smallest, the bird species are: the Slander billed Curlew, Sociable Lapwing, Basra Reed Warbler, Steppe Eagle, White-headed Duck, Saker Falcon, Macqueen‘s Bustard, Greater Spotted Eagle, Marbled Duck, and the Common Pochard.

The birds—installed on a Middle Eastern folk textile—are conceptually based on a Mesopotamian weight shaped like a bird that was part of the collection of the National Museum of Iraq un- til it was looted during the war two decades ago— to date, it is unrecovered. Connecting endangered birds to ancient weights implies value; humankind used weights for trade to determine the worth of commodities. In this sense, Sum of the misdeeds and consents and cowardly acts asks: What is the value of non-human life in conflicted territories?