John Menick

From Creative Time:

Michael Rakowitz will re-open Davisons & Co., based on the importexport business his family operated in Baghdad. Located in a storefront on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue, the project will provide free shipping for the Iraqi diaspora community, as well as other families who have military personnel stationed in Iraq, thereby creating a space where human concerns on both sides of the conflict can meet.

Davisons & Co. was originally opened in New York by Rakowitz’s grandfather when the family was exiled from Iraq in 1946, leaving behind a legacy that spanned centuries. In this incarnation of the business, Rakowitz will also attempt the importation of Iraqi dates and other products, offering them at prices that are clearly the result of prohibitive import charges and restrictions that remain years after the Gulf War embargo was lifted in 2003. This situation has kept Iraqi products from legally entering the United States, with severe repercussions for the previously thriving, world-renowned date industry in Iraq that produced over 600 different varieties.

Michael is also blogging the project.