Return
A Project by Michael Rakowitz
- Regine Basha -
A few months ago, I began a project tracking the musical life of Iraqi Jews, from legendary performances on Baghdad Radio in the 1940s to worldwide house parties and jam sessions by those left alive in the diaspora. Since I’m not an ethnomusicologist, artist, documentary filmmaker or archivist, the initial question I had to ask myself was in what way could this be a curatorial project—and, especially, how would this personal material (my own father is a musician) transcend the already dead horse of American identity politics of the nineties? While driving and pondering this, I heard a story on the NPR program “This American Life” about a shop in Brooklyn opened by artist Michael Rakowitz. Whenever artists open shops, I excitedly recall the activities of Allan Kaprow, Gordon Matta-Clark and Claes Oldenburg, and knowing a bit about Michael’s work, I figured his project would invoke a similar conceptual/performative ethos but with an emphasis on site-specificity and visitor relations.
The radio program went on to describe how Rakowitz’ enterprise, Return, was a part of Creative Time’s “Who Cares” project.1 Rakowitz had reopened an import/export business begun by his now-deceased grandfather, an Iraqi Jew who fled to Bombay in the late 1940s and then settled in New York, establishing and operating a business there until 1960. His Atlantic Avenue shop, adjacent to many other Middle Eastern specialty stores, carried products made in Iraq but packaged and labeled elsewhere, like Lebanon and Syria, offering a lesson in the political and economic complexities of exporting products from Iraq to the United States—or anywhere else for that matter.
The walls of the new store were decorated with early versions of the Iraqi flag, denoting the time the artist’s grandfather operated his business in Iraq, as well as establishing an onsite timeline for the business in New York. A conspicuous banner on the storefront window announced “Iraqi Dates Coming Soon.” (Iraqi dates are said to be the most delectable in the world.) To the many visitors, Rakowitz’ shop seemed both a business and cultural center.2 What transpired in this shop/center/time zone greatly impacted both the artist and his customers, as well as the farmers, exporters and network of neighborhood characters that became intimately bonded—both by hope and by despair—in a shared experience. Return demonstrates how much culture rewinds and intertwines—how shared histories and overlap can be the basis for understanding the fruitful complexities of identity, which are sometimes contradictory and always in flux.
Regine Basha:
Can you describe your relationship to the diaspora of Iraqi Jews?
Michael Rakowitz:
Growing up in my maternal grandmother’s suburban home, my relationship was formulated around the normalcy of it all. Cuisine prepared by my mother and grandmother was one element and hearing my grandmother’s stories of her life in Baghdad was another. Arabic was spoken, so it was present but in a mundane way. My connections were thus fairly limited, but I do think that my grandmother’s tales, like the one about the “singing towers” that told time (which I later found out were minarets), were almost purposeful, presenting the life of a normal Iraqi—an Arab Jew who happened to live in Baghdad. Of course, the normalcy of this has since disappeared. People in the West can’t believe it when I say that I am an Iraqi or Arab Jew. How can there be such a thing? Discussions that ensue become more a history lesson than anything else—about the days before 1948 or the fact that the Iraqi Jewish community is the oldest in the world.
Regine:
Growing up, did your family, their friends and community speak with fondness/bitterness/nostalgia about the country from which they were exiled? Were they open about it? Has that changed in any way through your projects?
Michael:
Mostly I heard stories from my grandmother, which included moments of wonder anyone would experience no matter where they spent their childhood. One that sticks out in my mind was about a scorpion that lived in her basement. I knew that such creatures were not to be found in the Northeastern United States, so this story was about some place far away—almost like a fairy tale. After my grandmother passed away, it was my mother who shares stories with us, and when I was older, I understood that this entire narrative was tinged with sadness and pain. She was never apprehensive about discussing my grandparents or their history. But the complex layer to that conversation—and I would venture to say it is probably complicated for many Iraqi Jews—is connecting the traumatic experience of our family’s departure to what is happening now. My mother never set foot in Iraq; she was born in Mumbai and moved to New York City in 1946 when she was a year old. Nevertheless, she grew up during my grandparent’s assimilation and adjustment to a new home and in close proximity to the trauma of expulsion.
Michael Rakowitz, Return (Brooklyn),2006
Courtesy Lombard-Freid Projects, New York
As I began in the past few years to focus on this in my artwork, it opened up a new level of conversation with my mother. When I decided to reopen my grandfather’s import/export company, it presented a new set of questions and discussions, like were there any photographs of the store? The company was called Davisons & Co. in New York (my grandfather was an Anglophile). What was the company called in Baghdad? What did my grandfather import and export? These were practical questions—details I hadn’t focused on before. Subsequent discussions and anecdotes once again centered on normalcy—on the everyday.
A year after President Bush’s declaration “Mission Accomplished,” as many have pointed out, very little in the way of infrastructure had been repaired in Iraq, and one of the things that was sorely lacking was reliable or affordable shipping. This simple transaction was often nonexistent—and too expensive—for Iraqi citizens residing in the States who wanted to send things back home. For example, in December 2004, sending an eight-by-ten-inch photograph from New York City to Ramadi cost forty-eight dollars. One obvious question was why not just scan such items and send them via e-mail? Well, there was—and continues to be—no reliable electricity in Ramadi to turn on a computer, much less connect to the Internet. So, initially, my idea was to resurrect my grandfather’s company—at least symbolically—and use the project’s budget to send objects free of charge to Iraq for Iraqis living in the United States.
Michael Rakowitz, Return (Brooklyn),2006
Courtesy Lombard-Freid Projects, New York
My mother accessed her personal archive and found the original stationary my grandfather used for Davisons & Co. Using the exact layout and typeface, I had the letterhead translated into Arabic and updated the logo to include two photographs: one of my grandfather—Nissim Isaac David, the Founder—and one of myself, the current Proprietor. The design and typeface was then produced as vinyl text and transferred onto a green drop box. The receptacle was sited in the entrance of an existing import/export company operated by a Korean family.
Regine:
You said to me that Return is as much a business enterprise as it is an art project since it endeavors to bring back trade with Iraq and revive the dying economy of date exportation. With the added urgency of war-torn Iraq and the ensuing catastrophe of refugees, how did this version of the business take on new meaning?
Michael:
That’s a big question—one I can’t answer without explaining how the entire complexion of the project shifted. When I decided to propose Return as a storefront, the point was to continue offering free shipping to Iraq for Iraqis in the United States, as well as to American families who had relatives stationed in Iraq. In this way, I wanted the space to function as a platform for discourse. I imagined the effectiveness of creating a place where one could potentially have an Iraqi and an American family in the store at the same time, thereby enabling a discussion between those on both sides of the conflict.
In addition to continuing the gesture of shipping items, I wanted to explore the possibility of importing something clearly labeled as a product of Iraq—a facet I wanted to investigate since August 2004. At the time, I was doing most of my shopping at Sahadi’s, one of New York City’s most celebrated international groceries and importing companies, located on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. They’ve been around since 1930, and the owners are of Syrian-Lebanese/Christian origin. It was one of the stores my grandparents frequented when they first arrived in New York.
During one visit, I spotted a large red can with illustrations of waving palm trees labeled “Second House Products Date Syrup.” On the back, it was listed as a “Product of Lebanon.” I was intrigued by this syrup, or silan, which features prominently in many Iraqi Jewish customs, particularly during Passover when it is used as maroor during the Seder. I brought the can to the cash register, where Charlie Sahadi, the owner of the store, was standing. He’s a really nice man who knows many of his customers by name and recognizes familiar faces. Charlie told me, “Your mother’s going to love this. It’s from Baghdad.” I looked at the label and said that it was clearly labeled as a product of Lebanon. That’s when Charlie told me that date syrup is still processed in the Iraqi capital, put into large vats, driven over the border into Syria where it gets packed into unmarked aluminum cans and then moves on to Lebanon, where it receives a label and is exported to the rest of the world.
From 1990 until May 2003, this was one method that Iraqi companies used in order to circumvent UN sanctions. When I asked why it was still in practice in 2004—well over a year since sanctions were dropped in May 2003—Charlie replied that prohibitive charges, the result of the security scans by U.S. Customs, the Border Patrol and Homeland Security for any freight bearing the origin of Iraq, were to blame. For instance, a shipping container with paperwork that lists products as coming from Iraq will undoubtedly be designated for what is called an “intensive search.” This means that the entire container is X-rayed, and the goods thoroughly examined by hand, piece by piece. They then repack the container and charge the importer for the equipment usage and time expended, which often exceeds $3,500. This all occurs before a shipment reaches an importer’s warehouse, where it must then be examined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration before it can be stocked or shipped for sale.
Michael Rakowitz, Return (Brooklyn),2006
Courtesy Lombard-Freid Projects, New York
After this impromptu lesson on importing, I decided to further investigate the history of Iraqi exports. In the 1970s, Iraq was the chief exporter of dates in the world—the nation’s second largest export next to oil. At its peak, the date industry listed over thirty million productive date palms in the country, but the Iran-Iraq War cut this number in half. At the end of 2003, only three million remained, many of which were stricken by a disease called fusarium—a bacteria that causes the trunk of a palm to go flaccid and the tree to twist grotesquely, its crown bending toward the ground. Many believe susceptibility to bacteria to be the result of depleted uranium used in allied munitions. Radiation theoretically lowers the immune system of vegetation in areas in which such weaponry is expended.
As an extension of Return, I signed a deal, along with Sahadi Fine Foods, to directly import a ton of khestawi dates from Hilla—the first such deal in more than twenty-five years. The dates were to be clearly labeled “Products of Iraq,” with the Iraqi company Al Farez Co. receiving full profits, unlike the current situation in which companies producing the product receive only thirty percent of the profit. My impetus was based on the belief that at this critical moment in history, such an act had the ability to interrogate the laws that inhibit Iraqi products from entering the market—seemingly absurd laws when you consider stated programs for “rebuilding” the country and rehabilitating the economy. In this case, the perceived danger of entry was invested in sweet, innocuous fruits often symbolic in Iraqi culture as the herald of good things to come. Here was a product—an object—that could ask questions of all the customs officials that examined it, forcing them to consider their relationship to a single printed word: Iraq. The dates would serve as a litmus test, amplifying and illuminating the reasons for hindrances and delays in the importing process.
Michael Rakowitz, Return (Brooklyn),2006
Courtesy Lombard-Freid Projects, New York
With this transaction came communication, and with that communication came friendship. When I first corresponded with Bassam, general manager of Al Farez, he explained that my fascination with dates must come from my mother’s side of the family, as it is said that every Iraqi has a date in their genes. He wrote that it is traditional for parents to place a date in the mouth of a newborn baby so its first taste of life is sweet. I found that wonderfully poetic and beautiful and heartbreaking, considering six weeks later, as our communication grew into a real friendship, Bassam, his wife and children had to leave Baghdad because it was too simply dangerous to continue to live there. Suddenly, our conversations shifted from him being in Baghdad and symbolically welcoming my family back to Iraq, to a conversation on exile. Bassam told me stories of Iraq—of what it looked like, what manna tastes like, how thick the trunks of date palms would get. He’d then sigh, realizing the way he was speaking, “Do I sound like your grandfather yet?”
Nevertheless, the dates soon came off the trees and were packed and ready to ship from Baghdad to Jordan by the beginning of October. From Jordan they were to receive a direct flight to JFK. Our shipment traveled along the highway between Baghdad and Amman, the most dangerous road in the country, and waited in a line reported to be days long because, at the very same time, hundreds of thousands of civilians were trying to flee escalating sectarian violence. Once the truck reached the checkpoint, Jordanian border guards informed the driver that he needed a “Radiation Scan Certificate” declaring the dates free from contamination, which seems to be a corroboration of the belief that depleted uranium was used during the war.
The truck returned to Baghdad where the dates were examined, awaited and awarded a certificate. The truck then returned to the border and waited. This time the Jordanians flatly refused the cargo, stating “security concerns.” The driver was incredulous. He called Bassam and his colleagues in Amman to find out what to do next. He headed north to Syria, drove right through the border and dropped the dates off at the airport in Damascus. The new plan was to get the shipment on a plane to Egypt and onward to the United States. The truck was held for an additional week, inspected and the dates found to be so blistered by the heat of over three weeks in transit that Al Farez deemed the cargo unacceptable for export. The shipment died in Syria.
All along, the story and daily updates were communicated to the customers who frequented the store. The dates suddenly became a surrogate, traveling the same path as Iraqi refugees—turned away by Jordan, given their recently tightened borders—and then trying their luck in Syria in the attempt to get to Egypt. Tragically, many never reach their destination. So, suddenly, a business meant to illuminate something very specific on the U.S. side of a transaction was illustrating a story that most people in the States were not hearing.
The store became a place where that crisis and its affiliated narrative were disseminated—hardly the exchange a customer would expect. The project began to function as a community space and social network where my presence receded. The possibility of a chance meeting was facilitated and choreographed by the appearance of my strange store, but customers were no longer reacting to me but to each other. As an artist, I am invested in the construction of metaphors, so it is natural for me to attempt juxtaposition. But the narratives produced—both past and present—are intertwined with so many associated injuries that a clear and concise poetry was rendered impossible.
1 http://creativetime.org/programs/archive/2006/whocares/
projects_rakowitz.html.
2 ibid.