By the beginning of the 20th century, German excavations dislocated many objects from Ottoman Iraq, which are now exhibited in museums worldwide. In her research Irrestitutable, Zoya Masoud addresses the historic injustices and colonial worldviews, which continue to shape the translocation of these objects. In this seminar, she will focus on the laborers, who carried out the excavations with German archaeologists. The contribution of these Ottoman Iraqi subjects is often poorly documented. They appear as ghostly presences, as either unnamed or only vaguely identified figures in archival reports, or silent bodies (children, women and men) captured in photographs. Their spectral presences raise vital questions: Who were these Ottoman-Iraqi subjects and excavators? How were they recruited? In which ways did they contribute to the excavation processes? Zoya follows their ghostly traces until present day, not only to invoke their specters, but also to unveil how existing scholarship has predominantly focused on European archaeologists and institutions and produced a “heroic male” narrative around Iraqi excavation sites. Nora Al-Badri responds to these historical injustices through her artistic interventions. In projects such as Babylonian Vision and The Post-Truth Museum, she employed AI tools to engage with cultural objects held in museums in the Global North. For Nora, techno-heritage and technologies have an emancipatory promise, that is actually past-oriented as it relies on historical data sets. In their dialogue about their differing perspectives on technology, Zoya and Nora will discuss the possibilities and limitation of such approaches for reparative justice, with regard to both affects and methodology.
Zoya Masoud works at the intersection of postcolonial studies and post-foundational theory. Employing qualitative research methodologies, her work engages in critical inquiry into identity, architecture, heritage, commemoration, violence, and knowledge production. Her first book Dislocated. Heritage Construction through Experience of Loss in Aleppo is forthcoming with De Gruyter/Brill. Currently, she is conducting her postdoctoral project, Irrestitutable. Inquiries into Hauntings of Absent Cultural Heritage. Since Fall 2024, Zoya has been a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC project BEYONDREST at the Forum Transregionale Studien. She has worked and studied at several Universities and institutions in Damascus, Hamburg, Dar es Salaam, and Berlin.
Nora Al-Badri is a German-Iraqi multidisciplinary media artist, researcher, and educator based in Berlin. Her research-driven, postcolonial practice explores the politics and emancipatory potential of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data sculpting. Drawing on speculative archaeology, digital heritage, and institutional critique, she examines power structures embedded in museums, archives, and technological systems. Al-Badri studied Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt and teaches at ETH Zurich. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica, and Science Gallery Dublin. Since 2024, she has served on the board of Transmediale Berlin.
Niloufar Tajeri (she/her) is an architect and researcher. She is a doctoral candidate at the Berlin University of the Arts working in the fields of architectural theory and urban studies. In her dissertation, she investigates the relationship between (real estate) speculation, memory culture, and discourse within the context of neoliberal urban development. Her research focuses on housing studies, spatial theory, climate justice and intersectionality.
This event will be held in a hybrid format. For in-person attendance, please register in via beyondrest[at]trafo-berlin.de. For online participation, please note the login details for Zoom:
https://zoom.us/j/98242258875?pwd=RNepDHXp5ONNTsgtgiGtGPoaQgbUOA.1
Meeting-ID: 982 4225 8875
Kenncode: 098873
The event is part of the conversation series Restitution and its Vantage Points: Beyond the Preservation Paradigm of the BEYONDREST Research Group. “Beyond Restitution: Heritage, (Dis)Possession and the Politics of Knowledge” (BEYONDREST) is an ERC-funded, five-year research project at the Forum Transregionale Studien (Project No. 101045661). More information on the project and the conversation series can he found here.
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the speaker(s) and author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union, nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Depending on approval by the speaker(s), the Berliner Seminar will be recorded. All audio recordings of the Berliner Seminar are available on SoundCloud.