An exploration of modern urban and industrial devastation through a post-industrial interpretation of the ancient Mesopotamian ‘City Lament’ poetry style.

The Storm contrasts between the mass urban destruction that was experienced by the very first urban pioneers, and an impeding contemporary one. It uses a series of found industrial objects, familiar to the viewer, and places through an extreme retro-futuristic setting with distinct ancient Sumerian and Babylonian inscriptions and practices.

The Storm takes its name as reference from the Laments for Nippur and Uruk, who had both been destroyed by (figurative and/or literal) storms.

View Room Sheet here

Read the ‘Song of Storms, City Lament’ here
Translated to English by AICC (A.I. Cuneiform Corpus) through the Large Language Model (T5).

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Jahan Xanlü is a Swiss-Iranian multidisciplinary writer and musician, currently based in Naarm, so-called Australia. His practice-led research focuses on exploring ancient traditions and mythologies, merging them with modern contexts to dream of dynamic futures that engage with the degrading realities of the present. Building on his past work in linguistics research and photo-journalism, he particularly focuses on language and aesthetic and the role it plays in such traditions.

Documentation: Siro Cavaiuolo