Heritage Studies #5

Overview

Iman Issa’s work has explored the contemporary relevance of objects, ideas and modes of communication that seemingly belong to another time. Her precise compositional language – marked by familiar geometric shapes, clean lines and adaptations of museological display – mine the latent meaning and transformational potential in aesthetic forms.

As part of her series ‘Heritage Studies’ (2015-), based on existing museum objects, artworks and elements from the past, the work does not always bear physical resemblance to their historical referents, it shares similar sets of concerns. Exploring a generative rather than nostalgic approach to the past, Issa’s reimagination of historical form suggests an attempt to unfix ideas from their physical and historical strictures. The work is accompanied by a caption that borrows from the objective tone of many museums, providing descriptice cues that offer a historical anchor while casting lines of communicative possibility toward the present.