Iihya’ is the closing chapter of Sama Alshaibi’s project Silsila (“Link,” photography and video, 2009-2017). Following a 40-year displacement from the artist’s homeland of southern Iraq, her return coincides with an apocalyptic reckoning with the dying ancient Mesopotamian Marshes. Once seen crisscrossing the historic deserts and water bodies of North Africa and the Middle East throughout Silsila, the protagonist returns to the source of creation and civilization. After decades of water mismanagement, targeted annihilation, and borderless climate change, the historic canals originating from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are at the brink of extinction, erasing the once bountiful wetlands of Alshaibi’s childhood. Witnessing the violated earth, the protagonist wills an imaginative intervention that reverses time and order in the marshlands. The protagonist’s return is not only one from exile but also a revival and gifting back to the rivers. A restorative ritual of spatial justice and eco-resilience, the video presents the power of harmony and balance through gestures of poetic imagination.