Of the nearly 18,000 objects held in the Louvre’s newly established département des Arts de l’Islam, 294 will be loaned to the Louvre Abu Dhabi sometime between 2016 and 2046. Of the 294 objects, twenty-eight will be affected by the journey in ways that historians, curators, and conservators could not have anticipated or predicted.

While no one will doubt the subsequent changes, the reason for their onset will be contested. Most will attribute them to the weather, asserting that the “corrosion” began soon after the exquisitely crafted, climate-controlled crates were opened in the Arabian Desert. But a rare few will correctly surmise that the objects opted to dissimulate: they traded skins, limbs, faces, and organs with each other.

Here, the objects are caught in the act; moreover, and to complement their dissimulation, I decided to provide them with like-minded vitrines, notations, and shadows.