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Flight into the Abyss appropriates an image-- cut out from the sports column-- of Keyhan newspaper published in Iran, 1984. The picture depicts an Olympics training session at the Shiroodi Stadium in Tehran: the athlete’s body suspended and the coach standing against the stadium backdrop. In what appears to be an ordinary local event, the three words on the stadium banner “ سرنوشت جنگ را“ The Fate of War, shift the paradigm of the image. These words, epitomize the state’s rhetoric that heightened during the Iran-Iraq (1980-1988), where the war machine, in every aspect of its operation became a divine endeavor. Iran referred to the war as the “holy war,” and the rhetoric of a jihad expanded well beyond the battleground and into the fabric of the society. Mainly achieved by mythologizing the human suffering as the ultimate form of redemption. Appropriating this image in scale, as well as in time nearly 35 years later, points to the enduring effects of the war and the unchanged circumstances of the region’s geopolitics. The 8” x 8” newsprint image is blown up 30 times to scale to the athlete’s body. The trajectory of the jump is imagined through painted areas on the wall. The stadium backdrop with distant and sporadic viewers is printed on fluttering fabric, and the hexagonal cubes crash pads are made of reflective acrylic mirror and are placed on the floor in the direction of the athlete’s jump. The words “Fate of War”, enlarged to match the scale of the athlete's body, lure one in its gold reflective surface. The paint on the wall is Olympic Bronze.