Behind the phantom portraits of the series, Risan reconstructs aspects of the city by sifting through a mound of mental images amassed since his displacement, and translates Iraq’s recent history into tangible forms. In place of providing linear narratives, however, the problem spaces of his works employ “displacement, substitution, and condensation,” the processes of “re-presentation” that Stuart Hall, citing Sigmund Freud, argued are necessary to forging a relationship between “the artwork and the world,” and “the psychic and the social.”[5] Left deliberately unresolved, the artist’s paintings, drawings, and books compel the viewer to fully enter his insuperable subject matter.