Mosul, Basrah, Kirkuk, Najaf, Fullujah, Baghdad - cities that flash across the television with news of devastation and suffering are located between the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates. Here, in what was once the cradle of civilization or the Fertile Crescent, plants that are central to human diets originated. In Surviving Paradise, Janet Koenig and Greg Sholette create a miniature "epic" theater in which botanical survival and human desire are linked to this war-torn landscape. Five dioramas represent the successive impact of human invasions in the region first by the Persians in 539 BC, followed by the Greeks in 331 BC, the Mongols in 1258 AD, the Ottomans in the 1500s, and finally in 1918 the British, whose discovery of oil radically altered the geopolitics of the region.

The dioramas chart desertification that intensified with each conquest, beginning at the top with the impressive irrigation systems that first transformed the arid land. A miniature wooden easel implausibly holds a small painting portraying the pomegranate, date palm, cedar, grapes, and lotus flower - all of which are found today at Wave Hill. The framing archway incorporates ornament inspired by Assyrian and Persian designs based on these plants, as well as images reflecting the invading warriors. Surviving Paradise is a study in contrasts where the mythical and real, the ancient and modern confront each other at the intersection of botanical survival and geopolitical conflict.

Janet Koenig and Greg Sholette frequently collaborate on projects such as disLOCATIONS, dioramas about the forgotten histories of San Diego, CA and Tijuana, Mexico, exhibited at inSITE94, at the Visual Art Center Gallery in San Diego, CA. Through REPOhistory, a public art and activist collective, they organized public art projects in New York, NY and Atlanta, GA. Janet Koenig’s solo project Eat… Shop… Vote… was exhibited at the Ramapo College Library, Ramapo, NJ. Greg Sholette Selected Projects was exhibited with a catalogue at Colgate University, Hamilton, NY where he was the “Distinguished Batza Family Chair in Art and Art History” in 2004. For more information www.gregorysholette.com.