May You Break Free and Outlive Your Enemy confronts us with the case of Persia’s ancient Elamite city of Susa, whose 5,000-year-old ruins were, from the 19th century on, stripped of part of their heritage by French archaeologists funded by the Louvre. This ancestral territory has also been the focus of considerable colonial interest because of its rich petroleum deposits. Many artifacts uncovered during the French excavations have ended up in the Louvre’s collections, including several Elamite funerary heads. Stuck today in “a sort of museum limbo,” these heads were originally intended to protect and guide the ancestors of the Iranian people as they descended into the netherworld.
For this work, the artist has made a large-scale clay copy of one of these heads. Despite its monumental enlargement, the delicacy of the material has enabled her to capture the fragile, even damaged look of the original. The head’s cheek is laid against the floor, and from its wide, almond-shaped eyes – enhanced with bitumen, according to the Elamite craft tradition – flows what looks like a pool of petrol.
The head is surrounded by ten imperial fritillaries made of black glass. These flowers, known for their “upside-down” posture, are among the earliest ornamental plants from Iran to be introduced to Europe’s renowned gardens in the 16th century. According to Iranian folklore, their nectar is believed to be the plant’s tears, shed in mourning for the departed.
