Meloni's original aim was to connect the history of troubled countries with their current events to explore new ways of capturing uprisings against totalitarianism and the after-effects of colonial ventures. 'My intent was to try, within the limits of visual language, to understand and rationalise a conflict-its roots and evolution-and thus position it within its historical context. The Islamic State's emergence was a logical development, and I can potentially understand why many young men in Iraq, Syria and Libya decided to join. I asked myself many times: if I had been born Iraqi and my family was killed by US soldiers, what might I have done?'