Material Speculation: ISIS

Xenophobia has been on the rise in the last two decades in the Western World and it has influenced the political arena not just of conservative parties moving toward a more right wing course, but even centrist ones under pressure to “protect” the nation from perceived external threats. Seen in Moreshin Allahyari’s Material Speculation: ISIS, the digital recreations that were destroyed by ISIS, demonstrate the ability of art to function as an arena for political protest. Getting the necessary resources for the pieces was extremely grueling for Allahyari, especially because last year alone, over hundreds of ancient artifacts in museums have been destroyed by ISIS throughout Iraq and Syria. According to Meg Miller, Allahyari’s first art piece

She continues to say that she does not see a distinction between them in a way that would exclude one or the other. As an artist born and raised in a country like Iran, where she spent most of her life, she never had the privilege of thinking about art as only a decorative and visually pleasing medium. Politics was inserted into every small aspect of life in Iran, so she ­ organically­ saw her art practice as a way to address, criticize, and raise awareness about the political and cultural issues around her. As a new-media artist or art activist, she says there is something really beautiful and important about going beyond aesthetics and the fetishization of technology with the 3-D printing of her destroyed artifacts. In the fact that ISIS did try to do cultural genocide by destroying the artifacts just because it did not align with their interpretation in the Qur'an, shows the resilience of Allahyari in trying her best to preserve the culture. By recreating these cultural artifacts it was an unspoken act of bringing democracy and freedom into their

This ultimately, reflects how Muslims around the world have endured manifestations of Islamophobia, whether verbal or physical during the 21th century. And these are not just grown adults, toughened by life’s challenges in the face of adversity: children and teens also face subjugation in and outside of school, particularly females on account of wearing the hijab, or veil. Repetitive, harsh treatment at such early ages not only puts the child’s mental health and development at risk, but also may cultivate a negative view of western society, deepening the chasm that contemporary Islamophobia has begun to carve between Muslim-Americans and other Americans.

It does not help that Islamophobia is only helping ISIS. By all of the horrific acts that ISIS has done, it presents a very narrow-minded way of thinking about Islam as a whole. It is a natural human response to resent, fear, and seek to fight an entity that attacks you—especially on a constant basis—and if Islamophobia is not quelled in the future, the fictitious suspicions of westerners may become more and more like