No Added Sugar Catalogue - Casula Powerhouse

CASULA POWERHOUSE ARTS CENTRE PRESENTS
12 MAY–8 JULY 2012
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
CASULA POWERHOUSE ARTS CENTRE
WWW.CASULAPOWERHOUSE.COM
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AS-SALAMU ALAYKUM
PEACE BE UPON YOU
AND WELCOME TO
NO ADDED SUGAR
Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre is proud to present
No Added Sugar, the ground-breaking visual arts
exhibition that is the outcome of our national initiative,
the Australian Muslim Women’s Arts Project.
Our project vision has been an expansive one,
developed over a number of years, with community
engagement and artist development critical to
the outcome. This process now culminates in this
exhibition that brings together eight diverse artist
projects, grounded by the creative words of artist
Eugenia Flynn. The eight-week exhibition season
is accompanied by weekly public events.
The 18 artists—from Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra—
have become part of a dynamic national network.
They committed themselves to an intensive process,
which included two artist laboratories in 2011, as
well as their own independent community cultural
engagement projects, all with the support of Casula
Powerhouse Arts Centre. The project as a whole is a
significant model of contemporary cultural production.
CASULA POWERHOUSE ARTS CENTRE
1 CASULA ROAD, CASULA
WWW.CASULAPOWERHOUSE.COM
CONTACT US:
02 9824 1121
RECEPTION@CASULAPOWERHOUSE.COM
WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY:
RUSAILA BAZLAMIT: CURATOR, NO ADDED SUGAR
ALISSAR CHIDIAC: PRODUCER, NO ADDED SUGAR
DESIGN AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY:
EQUILIBRIUM DESIGN
Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre acknowledges the
participation of community members who were part of
the artists’ cultural engagement hubs in three Australian
cities. We are grateful for the long-term support of
the Project Working Party—professional women from
Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, who were
on board before the Project Plan was even developed.
The artworks in this exhibition were truly created
with the artists being critically aware of engagement
with people and place —as well as with their
inner selves. For the visitor, we hope that No
Added Sugar opens up fresh creative spaces and
provides opportunities for the unexpected.
ONE : INTRODUCTION
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EUGENIA FLYNN
ASIYA SIAN DAVIDSON
CROOKED RIB ART
FATIMA KILLEEN
IDIL ABDULLAHI
MARWA CHARMAND
MEHWISH IQBAL
RESALA ALAZZAWI
ZEINA IAALI
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CURATORIAL
STATEMENT
No Added Sugar came out of the process of the
Australian Muslim Women’s Arts Project. PROCESS,
therefore is the key word that has structured the
exhibition. That process has manifested through the
two main themes of the exhibition: ‘Engagement’
and ‘Self-Determination’, creating an organic
flow of concepts and visuals with deeper and
meaningful consciousness to people and place.
The notion of “sweetness” is irrelevant to No
Added Sugar, it is not about sweetness, or
bitterness for that matter. It is about rawness,
these Muslim women creating art and expressing
their ideas as they choose, imagining the world
will listen as they want to be listened to.
As Cultural Community Engagement is an integral
aspect of this project, two spaces of the exhibition are
dedicated to the work created by the communities.
Marsden Gallery and Kids Gallery feature some
of the work that was produced in that process,
acknowledging and respecting the input these people
brought to this project and to the art-making process.
The other theme of this project is “Self-Determination”.
This means that the artists had brought up issues
and worked with concepts that they have chosen.
They didn’t have to conform to any pre-determined
conceptual or visual frameworks that are usually
placed on them as Muslims, as women, as Australians,
as artists or a mix of these four elements.
The engagement process that developed between the
artists and the communities they chose has influenced
all involved. The participants have engaged with the
artists in various creative expression activities where
they have produced canvasses, clay-pots, bags and
paintings as well as sharing their stories and life
experiences. This interaction has influenced and
inspired the artworks that the artists have produced.
Artists have chosen various themes, from exploring
deeper understanding of faith to challenges facing
young Muslim girls, working with objects of memory
and creating visible dialogues, from refugees’
experience of enforced separation to children’s tales
of migration, personal stories of war and raw feelings
of divorce. In a parallel dimension, poetic words
by Eugenia Flynn have opened up the Indigenous
connection to Home, Place, Land and Sea.
This is not your ‘expected’ Muslim Women’s Arts
exhibition. This is a brave world determined by
these artists’ honest creative imagining. As you
enter Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre break
away from any representational predictions you
have and allow yourself to embrace the journey
these artists are offering to take you through.
FIVE :
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
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EUGENIA
FLYNN
B. 1982, ADELAIDE,
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
LIVES AND WORKS IN
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA
Eugenia Flynn is a Larrakia, Tiwi, Chinese and Muslim
woman. From a young age she was actively involved in
Indigenous cultural work in Adelaide and she is now
the Student Programs Manager at the Wilin Centre
for Indigenous Arts at the University of Melbourne.
Born in Adelaide, to an Aboriginal father from the
Northern Territory and a Chinese mother from
Malaysia, Flynn converted to Islam in 2002. She
is a critical thinker and writer, using her unique
life experiences and perspectives to infuse her
writing with strength, power and critique.
During the two intensive Artist Labs at Casula
Powerhouse Arts Centre in 2011, Flynn grounded the
context of the work with a sense of ‘Place’, asserting
culture as an integral part of everyday life. She was
a provocateur, challenging the artists and laying a
foundation of concepts, ideas and philosophies that
underpin the Project. Her role as critical supporter
is embodied within the No Added Sugar exhibition
through her poetic words – in a sense, holding,
grounding, challenging and embracing the work
of the visual artists within the gallery spaces.
Her work brings a literary dimension to the exhibition
and Flynn is committed to grounding the visitor to
‘Country’ and to Indigenous connections to ‘Home’
and ‘Place’ and ‘Land’ and ‘Sea’. Conceptually cradling
the work of the other artists, Flynn’s lyrical journey
may also push boundaries of comfort to invoke
new meanings, understandings and imaginings.
I SIGH A THOUSAND SIGHS
E X H A L E D B R E A T H,
THAT SOMETIMES ECHOES FROM THE PAST
I SWEAR I HEAR MY MOTHER’S BREATH,
WITHIN MY OWN
T H E L O N G S I G H S M O S T L Y
CAN I WHISPER TO YOUR HEART, DEAR FRIEND
A BISMILLAH, IN THE NAME OF GOD A SPIRITUAL OPENING OF OUR HEARTS
TO BEGIN THIS JOURNEY WITH GOD’S LOVE
CAN I WHISPER IN YOUR EAR, DEAR FRIEND
R E M I N D Y O U O F T H O S E , D E A R,
AND THAT THIS
NATION HAS
BLACK HISTORY
SPIRITUAL TIES TO LAND, MADE LAST
G O N E P A S T
Though subtle and seamless, the fluid action of Flynn’s
poetic words within No Added Sugar manifest an
innovative vision of contemporary cultures on this Land.
AND CAN I TAKE YOUR HAND, DEAR FRIEND
LEAD YOU ON THIS JOURNEY TOGETHER
SHOW YOU INSPIRATION
ON THESE WALLS
IMAGINATIONS DESPITE ENCLOSURE
SEVEN : EUGENIA FLYNN
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ASIYA SIAN
DAVIDSON
B. 1975, TASMANIA
LIVES AND WORKS IN
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA
Asiya Sian Davidson is an artist who paints and
draws by making intricate marks using pen, ink,
glass paint, fingerprints and text. Davidson’s practice
is informed by a love of semantics and exploring
spaces beyond the limitations of language. Language
itself is often a key to evoking sensations of the
ambiguous, particularly semitic languages such as
Arabic, which has an elaborate root system that
provides layers of meaning to every expression. This
kind of fluidity is sometimes forgotten in the modern
world where we try to situate and fix our immediate
reality into components that can be controlled and
tamed. Davidson’s own art making explores these
spaces of fluidity, the non-linear, the in-between.
The work that Davidson has made for this exhibition
explores the sacred play of opposites and of
contradiction as it unfolds within subjective experience,
and how agitation becomes catharsis. She has
experimented with video performance for the first time
and also worked with her familiar area of drawing,
painting and installation. Her work is very detailed,
consisting of many tiny, repetitive marks, patterns and
text. There is a meditative quality to her art making
process that, for Davidson, is a spiritual practice.
In No Added Sugar, Davidson has created a video
projection based on her own performance in an
enclosed space titled There is no reality but the
Reality. She also created a mixed media artist book
titled Constellations/ Possibilities inspired by her
community engagement. Davidson has created a
mixed media installation using a vintage office desk
titled The Untorn Fabric of What is Stirred where
words give shape into substance yet shifting, eluding
and generating endless scenarios and questions.
LEFT:
Asiya Sian Davidson
Detail of Constellations/Possibilities
2012
Mixed media assembled as an artist book
Image courtesy of artist
NINE : ASIYA SIAN DAVIDSON
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CROOKED
RIB ART
ESTABLISHED 2007,
MELBOURNE
LIVE AND WORK IN
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA
Crooked Rib Art is a Muslim women arts collective
that has participated in a number of art projects
addressing various social and cultural issues. The
common theme amongst these projects has been
collaboration with different communities. For the
Australian Muslim Women’s Arts Project the collective
aimed to provide an opportunity for young women
from the Muslim community to artistically engage with
others and to express themselves. One of the driving
forces behind the collective’s work with their young
participants was to create a space for them to freely
express themselves and expand their social networks.
The collective includes the following artists: Sumaya
Asvat, Reeham Hakem, Sara El Agha, Hosna Saleem,
Pesuri Ahmad, Saffiah El Attar, Faza Firdayu,
Nour Sukkar, Sarah Mahri and Lauren Thomas
For their collaborative art piece, titled Absence of
Presence Crooked Rib Art explored the recurring
issues that arose throughout the year-long community
engagement process. The strongest theme was
that of ‘space’, with its various interpretations,
such as physical, emotional or mental space.
Through installation art, which utilises a range of
artistic media, the artists question the association
of space with power and representation.
Crooked Rib Art have worked individually and in
pairs to produce some of the works. In Simulacrum,
Reeham Hakem is questioning realities from
distortions through those of ugliness and those of
beauty, pain and pleasure, fear and desire using
digital imaging. Faza Firdayu pays tribute to thoughts
and memories that were once worth writing in
her audio installation titled The Musing Self.
Tasbih, a mixed media objects installation, was created
by Sumaya Asvat and Sara El Agha where they
explored how, through different periods of their life,
they have collected different ideas, emotions and states
of being and how all of these elements contribute to
who they are and who they will become. As for Hosna
Saleem and Pesuri Ahmad, they challenge viewers
to expose their real emotions by asking them the
question “Are you OK” in their interactive installation.
THIS PAGE:
Crooked Rib Art
Detail of Absence of Presence
2012
Mixed media (photography, digital imaging, installation)
Image courtesy of Crooked Rib Art/Sumaya Asvat
ELEVEN : CROOKED RIB ART
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FATIMA
KILLEEN
B.1968, CASABLANCA,
MOROCCO
LIVES AND WORKS IN
CANBERRA, ACT
Fatima Killeen is an artist who works across different
media, ranging from painting, mixed media, printmaking
and installations, refining her skills over 24
years of art practice. She has studied in Morocco, the
United States and in Australia, settling in Canberra
in 1994. Killeen’s work offers a distinctive outlook on
contemporary issues, influenced by her background
as Moroccan Muslim and Australian. Furthermore,
Killeen employs a fusion of different types of media
when creating her work. Anti-war sentiments, along
with humanitarian concerns, are core features
of her work, which reveal stories of great moral
injustice, frequently within heartbreaking themes.
Killeen’s installation Conversation of Compromises
features printing and found objects housed in seven
drawers. These objects are simple, used and abused,
sometimes insignificant, maybe pre-loved. Killeen
is interested in the dialogue that takes place when
foreign objects are placed in the same installation,
potentially provoking ideas, concepts and accessibility
to the world that the artist is trying to translate to the
viewer. It is an instantaneous placement of thoughts.
Killeen also created a mixed media table titled
The Gathering, this work is born straight from
the women’s community workshop; it remembers
their own stories, input and physical markings.
Her idea is nurtured by the gathering of women
back home during the harvest season.
RIGHT:
Fatima Killeen
Detail of Conversation of Compromises, House Warming
2012
Acrylic, lace, paper roses, found objects, wood
THIRTEEN : FATIMA KILLEEN
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IDIL
ABDULLAHI
B.1980, SOMALIA
LIVES AND WORKS
IN SYDNEY, NSW
Idil Abdullahi is a ceramic and henna artist who came
to Australia as a refugee with her family in 1993. Aside
from her artistic practice, Abdullahi has worked as a
Somali community worker assisting new refugees to
resettle in Australia. In her art practice, Abdullahi often
uses symbols of faith to examine her personal ideas
of identity and self. Her work is motivated by thoughts
of separation and re-connection to the earth, having
always been drawn to nature and her environment.
For No Added Sugar, Abdullahi explores the
impact of enforced separation from familiar
environments and of building new connections
and relationships to one’s new surroundings. She
has created two different sculptural series. The
Whitening porcelain series comments on the need
that African refugee women feel to change the
way they dress to fit into their new environment.
Her cracked porcelain vessels series Loss evokes
emotions and wounds of trauma and loss, of being
forced out and thrown into an unfamiliar and sometimes
unsympathetic environment. Abdullahi uses the ancient
organic medium of henna experimentally as a vehicle
to revive stories from African history. Using henna
she has produced a photographic series titled Erased
and a textile installation titled Dead Dira. In both
these works Abdullahi borrowed elements from her
Somalian heritage. In Erased she is looking at personal
feelings of being erased from the past, present and
future as a Somali woman herself living in Sydney.
LEFT:
Idil Abdullahi
Loss
2012
Slipcast porcelain and found copper wire
FIFTEEN : IDIL ABDULLAHI
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MARWA
CHARMAND
B.1991,
CAMPBELLTOWN, NSW
LIVES AND WORKS IN
CAMPBELLTOWN, NSW
Marwa Charmand is an emerging artist whose art
practice includes oil painting, charcoal drawing
and mixed media on canvas. The theme of war has
always been an interest for the artist and many of
her paintings look at how she can tell stories of
different war experiences through art. Poverty and
animal cruelty are other themes that Charmand is
drawn to, as she depicts the harsh realities of life,
and aspects of cruelty and injustice that are often
hidden from our everyday lives. Her paintings are
usually large-scale and vary in their technique,
depending on how she wishes to convey her story.
In No Added Sugar, Charmand depicts personal
stories of different wars in Lebanon through the
creation of large-scale paintings. As her compositions
came from her own personal investigation of stories
from her family who experienced war in Lebanon,
the paintings are humane rather than iconic
allowing people to interact and understand the
brutality of war on an honest and intimate level.
Charmand’s work includes two large scale oil
paintings, Mistaken Identity and Hanging by a
Thread. She is also exhibiting a series of stories
in charcoal sketches titled Strength to Survive.
SIXTEEN : MARWA CHARMAND
OPPOSITE PAGE:
Marwa Charmand
Hanging by a Thread
2012
Oil sticks and plaster on canvas
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MEHWISH
IQBAL
B.1981, PAKISTAN
LIVES AND WORKS
IN SYDNEY, NSW
Mehwish Iqbal is a printmaker and painter whose
work raises questions about the disparities between
developed and developing countries in terms of
stability, economics and basic human rights. She is
especially drawn to the situation of children, which
led her to the development of a series of works titled
Recyclable Souls, which investigates the compromised
lives of young children in developing countries.
In No Added Sugar, Iqbal continues to explore the
theme of children’s experiences of migration and
adaptation. Her work poetically depicts struggles,
challenges and feelings that migrants go through.
This has been done through a series of large prints
titled Alif Bey, Merry Go Round 1, Merry Go Round
2, Pollination, The Dinner Table and The Jackal that
employs different printing techniques; silkscreen,
collagraph and etching. Iqbal has also created an
untitled series of Kozo paper scrolls using various
printing techniques, collage and stitching to add layers
to the artworks. Another major art piece is Iqbal’s The
Silence of the Sea an installation comprised of 5,000
paper boats in a cubic shape with a hidden fluidity.
OPPOSITE PAGE:
Mehwish Iqbal
Detail of The Jackal
2012
Silkscreen collograph etching
THIS PAGE:
Mehwish Iqbal
The Jackal
2012
Silkscreen collograph etching
NINETEEN : MEHWISH IQBAL
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RESALA
ALAZZAWI
B.1968, IRAQ
LIVES AND WORKS
IN SYDNEY, NSW
Resala Alazzawi is a craft artist who arrived as a
refugee in Australia ten years ago with her family
after escaping Iraq. Alazzawi works with migrant
women producing arts and crafts. Her approach
is hands-on, focusing on sewing, reusing fabrics
and textiles. Furthermore, she has been involved in
several public art projects across Western Sydney
In her art making process, Alazzawi was inspired by
family ties and relations, which were dominant themes
in the stories shared by the women in her workshops.
She has created domestic objects from found and used
fabrics that were collected from her family and friends.
In Family Tree Alazzawi has gathered old clothes
from her family and friends, torn them apart,
and rewoven them to create a lamp. The fabrics
create a rich texture, reflective of the memories
and meanings they originally possess yet they are
recontextualised. A similar technique of re-using
fabric was used in her piece Garden of Women. As
for Alazzawi’s piece Pyramid of Hope she created
another lamp using organic materials symbolising
hope as the light that lives inside us as humans.
LEFT:
Resala Alazzawi
Pyramid of Hope
2012
Wood, loofah, canvas rope
Image courtesy of Casula
Powerhouse Arts Centre
TWENTY-ONE : RESALA ALAZZAWI
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ZEINA
IAALI
B.1978, SYDNEY, NSW
LIVES AND WORKS
IN SYDNEY, NSW
Zeina Iaali is a jewellery maker and mixed media artist
who was born and raised in Australia to Lebanese
parents. She was a school teacher for six years. Within
that time, she also ran a number of community based
programs such as mentoring and addressing social
issues young boys face. In her artistic practice, Iaali
uses a range of materials such as perspex, wood, clay
and metal to create sculptural works. She draws her
ideas from her own personal experiences and considers
art making a platform for self expression and a way
to discover her identity. Iaali’s main thematic concern
is with the conflict and tension between culture,
identity, religion and the pressures women in particular
face in trying to be “perfect” to the outside world.
Her art aims to bring to the surface what
is generally hidden and challenges the
set roles women are slotted into.
Though divorce is an allowed practice in Muslim
communities, it is not welcomed. Within the social
and cultural structures of these communities, the
consequences of divorce usually weigh heavily on
women, and are often taboo. Iaali’s project for No
Added Sugar explores different aspects of divorce
and its impact on women, though she avoids using
the word ‘divorce’ in order to investigate issues
beyond the relationship status which often define,
and thus restrict, a woman’s sense of identity.
In You Complete Half Your Religion When You Get
Married, Iaali has created porcelain hands with a
missing ring finger to comment on how women are
made to feel incomplete if they are divorced. Whereas
in Sweetly Moulded Iaali created a series of Perspex
mould sculptures symbolising how women are forced
to perform and act in the same sweet manners.
Iaali used wedding gowns to upholster a chair she
created in Made to Measure to satirically depict the
cultural pressure placed on women to please and
conform to expectations of social and marital status.
OPPOSITE PAGE:
Zeina Iaali
Sweetly Moulded
2012
Perspex
ABOVE:
Zeina Iaali
Detail of Sweetly Moulded
2012
Perspex
TWENTY-THREE : ZEINA IAALI
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NO ADDED SUGAR
PRODUCTION TEAM
KIERSTEN FISHBURN: DIRECTOR
RUSAILA BAZLAMIT: CURATOR
ALISSAR CHIDIAC: CREATIVE PRODUCER
KHALED SABSABI AND ANNA GREGA: COMMUNITY
CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT PRODUCERS
JACQUELINE HORNJIK: MARKETING OFFICER
SIOBHAN WATERHOUSE: PUBLICIST
NISA MACKIE: PUBLIC PROGRAM & EDUCATION MANAGER
VI GIRGIS: PUBLIC PROGRAM AND EDUCATION OFFICER
STEPHEN HAWKER: TECHNICAL MANAGER
ADAM PORTER: ACTING CURATOR
LILIAN YONG: ASSISTANT REGISTRAR
KOBY HOLLINGWORTH: ADMINISTRATION OFFICER
ANCE RISTEVSKI: VISITOR SERVICES OFFICER
DESIGN AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY:
EQUILIBRIUM DESIGN
THE NO ADDED SUGAR PRODUCTION TEAM WOULD
ALSO LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE AUSTRALIAN MUSLIM
WOMEN’S ARTS PROJECT WORKING PARTY:
MOUNA ZAYLAH, NSW
OMEIMA SUKKARIEH, NSW
JUDITH BLACKALL, NSW
FREDA SHAFI, QLD
FAIZA EL-HIGZI, QLD
HEIDI ABDEL-RAOUF, VIC
CASULA POWERHOUSE ARTS CENTRE
IS THE CULTURAL FACILITY OF LIVERPOOL CITY COUNCIL
CONTACT US:
02 9824 1121
RECEPTION@CASULAPOWERHOUSE.COM
1 CASULA ROAD, CASULA
POSTAL ADDRESS
PO BOX 7064, LIVERPOOL BC, NSW 1871
TO STAY IN THE LOOP, JOIN OUR E-NEWS AT
WWW.CASULAPOWERHOUSE.COM
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