MAPS OF DEFIANCE

In August 2014, the Islamic State (ISIL) invaded the Sinjar region of northern Iraq, intent on exterminating the Yazidi, an ethnic and religious minority who have lived there since the 12th century. Their campaign included the systematic killing, torture, and sexual enslavement of the Yazidi people, and the widespread destruction of their homes, agriculture, and places of worship. Four years later, Forensic Architecture and Yazda, an international Yazidi NGO founded in the US in response to the 2014 attack, partnered on an initiative to document the sites of these crimes. They did this to support legal cases brought in international forums against members of ISIL. A training program devised by Forensic Architecture allowed members of the Yazidi community to carry out a photographic and modelling survey themselves. This exhibit shows the initial stages of the project: an analysis of the destruction of culturally specific Yazidi shrines and mausoleums. Demonstrating that the eradication of the most important sites of Yazidi heritage was systematic and widespread is crucial in bringing about genocide claims, which demand proof of ISIL’s intent to stamp out the Yazidi people and their culture.