Long subjected to environmental injustice and violence, the marshes in southern Iraq are also positioned as critical infrastructure for resource extraction by oil industries. Since January 2024, Iraqi police have blocked access to the Hawizeh Marsh—one of the three major wetlands—to facilitate the construction of the Iraq-Iran Sihrab oil field, cutting off the indigenous Ahwari people from their crucial resources. This project critically examines spatial strategies that persistently manipulate ecological flows vital to the wetlands under the guise of economic growth, nation-building, and progress. These strategies simultaneously accelerate the climate crisis and threaten the survival of the Ahwari people, whose modes of living have for centuries been intricately interwoven with the marshes. Through spatial analysis, the research interrogates dominant narratives and archival gaps that perpetuate the marshes’ transformation and the erasure of Indigenous knowledge. Beyond documenting loss and violence, the goal is to provide a powerful tool for supporting local efforts in resisting ongoing environmental injustice.

Farah Alkhoury is an Iraqi architect, researcher, and educator based in New York. Her work explores political entanglements and environmental stewardship as integral to architecture and spatial thinking. She is currently an architecture fellow at Bard College, where she is developing the project Occupied Ecologies: Architecture of Toxic Proliferation, which focuses on the enduring impacts of military toxicity embedded in soil, water, and air long after wars have ended. Alkhoury has previously taught at Columbia University, Rutgers University, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Her work has been exhibited at the International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (2023) and the Jewish Museum in New York (2024). Alkhoury holds a bachelor’s in architecture from the American University of Sharjah and a master’s in advanced architectural design from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Ameneh Solati is a research-based artist and architect. Her practice explores notions of power and resistance within marginalized spaces. She leads a design studio at the Design Academy Eindhoven and has previously taught at Gerrit Rietveld Academy and Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. She is an editor-at-large at Failed Architecture. Solati’s published work includes “Wetlands of Resistance” (e-flux Architecture, Fertile Futures, 2023) and “The Mesopotamian Marshlands: Devices of Control and Ecologies of Resistance” (Ecoes Magazine, 2021). Her work has been exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (2024) and the International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (2021). She was awarded the Talent Development Grant (2021) by the Dutch Creative Industries Fund. Solati was born in Iran to Iraqi-Iranian parents, raised in Sharjah, and currently lives in Rotterdam. She completed a master’s degree in architecture from the Royal College of Art in London.