Stolen Past

Arranged in four rows, 48 tombstone-like plinths fill the exhibition space. Each contains a lithophane – a thin translucent panel. When lit from behind, it reveals an image resembling a black-and-white photograph. Here, the illuminated surfaces depict ceramic vessels, clay tablets, ancient figurines, and fragments of pottery. Softly glowing in the darkened gallery, the installation evokes an atmosphere of quiet mourning. 

The images represent lost artefacts from the Raqqa Museum in Northern Syria, established in 1981 to preserve the region's cultural heritage. Its collection was comprised of 8,000 objects– including Palaeolithic tools, early pottery, painted ceramics, cuneiform tablets, and the renowned medieval, blue-glazed Raqqa ware–spanning a civilisational arc from as early as 40,000 BC to the Middle Ages. 

Between 2013 and 2017, Islamic State (IS) seized control of Raqqa and systematically looted the museum and its storehouses. While many artefacts were destroyed, others were trafficked onto the global illegal antiquities market. Today, only 880 objects remain from the original collection. Following determined local efforts to rebuild the museum and recover surviving works, around forty artefacts are currently on public display in Raqqa.  

For Stolen Past, artist Hrair Sarkissian adapted a mid-19th-century technique to 3D-print 90 of the missing objects as lithophanes, 48 of which are presented here. To create the works, Sarkissian relied on mobile phone photographs hastily taken by the Raqqa archaeological team and local residents in their attempts to safeguard these artefacts as the war in Syria began. 

The work reflects Sarkissian’s interest in how absence can be made visible, particularly for communities whose memory is marked by histories of violence. It considers what it means for material heritage to be forcibly erased and draws attention to the limitations of contemporary recovery efforts. Shown in London, a major hub in the global trade of illicit antiquities, the exhibition also raises questions about the systems that enable such displacement. In doing so, the work invites audiences to reflect on cultural erasure, collective memory, and on our shared responsibility to safeguard cultural heritage. 

Stolen Past was co-commissioned by the Aichi Triennial and Ibraaz