Dark Horizons

Pātaka Art+Museum

27 August 2017 - 22 January 2018

A suite of three interconnected solo exhibitions by:

Abdul Abdullah, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah and Khaled Sabsabi

Each of these artists presents an individual contemplation on migration and multiculturalism explored through sculpture, film, photography and painting. Through a process of personal introspection, the artists shed light on our own complicity in contributing to the economic, environmental and social conditions afflicting our international neighbours.

Catalogue Text:

When storm clouds stir on the distant horizon, they bring with them a foreboding sense of urgency. Advanced as our forecasting technologies are today, we still never truly know how the wind, rain and incoming tides will affect us. This sense of anxiety is emblematic of the twenty-first century human experience. Fear of the unknown future looms heavy in our minds, and for those people who are already feeling the global effects of war and environmental disaster, the storm is no longer a distant possibility. Dark Horizons consists of a suite of three interconnected solo exhibitions exploring this state of global anxiety through the lens of Muslim migrant communities in Australia. The artists in the exhibition are Malaysian and Anglo-Australian brothers Abdul Abdullah and Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, and leading Lebanese-Australian moving image artist Khaled Sabsabi. Each artist presents an individual contemplation on issues relating to migration and multiculturalism in Western colonial nations such as Australia and New Zealand. Through a process of personal introspection, the artists shed light on our own complicity in contributing to the economic, environmental and political conditions afflicting our international neighbours. The interplay between hope and dread is powerfully articulated in the life-like sculptures of Perth-based artist Abdul-Rahman Abdullah. His installation, The Dogs (2017), features a room full of ornate chandeliers floating above the gallery floor. Through the soft haze of refracted light a pack of black dogs appear, seemingly frozen in mid-flight with teeth bared and ears at full attention. It is unclear whether the dogs in this scene are in pursuit of a target or are fleeing danger themselves, creating a surreal, dream-like feeling that is at once both wondrous and nightmarish. As an artist of seventh generation Anglo-Australian heritage on his paternal side, and first generation Malaysian-Australian heritage on his maternal side, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah has significant insight into the cultural, political and religious anxieties of both Anglo-Australian and migrant-Australian communities. While identifying strongly as a Malay-Australian, he is often ‘othered’ because of his name and Muslim identity. This dynamic sits at the heart of The Dogs installation, being a potent contemplation on the often inhumane treatment of Muslim migrants and asylum seekers as sub-human. The work prompts us to look deeper into these issues and into our own hearts, to consider more critically our cultural context and those of our international neighbours. Sydney-based moving image artist Khaled Sabsabi knows too well the tribulations of gaining asylum in Australia. Born in Tripoli in the years preceding the Lebanese Civil War, Sabsabi was just a child when he first witnessed the butchered bodies of soldiers and militia men piled into the back of a truck parked across the street from his grandmother’s apartment. In the months following, as the fighting approached their home, they experienced intense shelling and were eventually forced to flee through the warzone when the basement they were sheltering in came close to collapse. Sabsabi remembers being frozen with fear when snipers shot at him, his brother and their grandmother as they crossed through areas of open terrain. Surviving this horrific ordeal, Sabsabi and his family eventually found a new home in Sydney’s culturally diverse Western suburbs in the late 1970s. Yet this refuge has not been completely peaceful either, and through his artwork Sabsabi reflects on the struggles he has faced as a Muslim Lebanese man trying to find his place in Australia, and the desire he possessed for reconnection and reconciliation with a homeland he was forced to flee. DARK HORIZONS In his most recent installation entitled We Kill You (2016) Sabsabi revisits Lebanon to reconnect and investigate the shared and hotly-contested histories of the region. Returning home with a sense of heartfelt nostalgia, Sabsabi found a changed landscape and a way of life that was unfamiliar. The expansive three channel moving image installation, produced over a two year period, documents this journey of re-familiarisation and includes footage shot in Morocco and Saudi Arabia. The moving image works are projected onto two-sided projection screens – enabling the viewer to walk around to the rear side of the screen to view a mirror image of the footage. This sleight of hand, in reversing the image, is more than a symbolic gesture. It is a demonstration of how seemingly subtle shifts in perspective can distort reality and move existing customs and practices in new directions. Sabsabi uses this device to delve into a range of themes, from Pan-Arab nationalist sentiment, increasing militarisation and the destabilising effects of colonialism. As he states, “the work is another personal chapter in dealing with and showing the factual contradictions of war and the effects it has had on all people everywhere”. This interest in contested lands and histories is shared by Sydney-based painter and photographer Abdul Abdullah, whose expansive multi-panel landscape painting and embroidery artwork entitled Mission Creep (2017) depicts the Hindukush Mountain range on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The beauty and painterly quality of this landscape belies a menacing history of political, religious and military turmoil which Abdul Abdullah draws out in his artwork. Spray painted and embroidered across the surface of each panel are a series of smiley-face emojis. These human symbols of momentary emotion appear in stark contrast to the cold permanence of the mountain range. This use of the emoji icon as a projection of human emotion is similarly explored in an accompanying series of embroidered portraits featuring returned Australian military personnel. In each of these portraits the subject sits within a brooding black background, their eyes peering out at the viewer from behind a graffiti-like smiley-face. Much like the juxtaposition of the emoji and the mountain range, the contradiction of the brightly coloured smiley and the shadowy figure lurking behind seems to suggest a façade of joy, shielding the viewer from a deeper, more ominous truth concealed within the stoic sitter. Seemingly defacing these otherwise masterful painterly works, Abdul Abdullah’s graffiti-like markings demarcate a moment of rupture and estrangement, acknowledging the traumatic experiences of war that many military personnel carry within them on their return home. Through this process Abdul Abdullah acknowledges our complicity as Western imperialist nations in global conflicts, while also putting a human face to the unsettling effects of post-traumatic stress experienced by military service personnel. While the title of this exhibition urges us to prepare for dark clouds looming overhead, the chandeliers presented here by Abdul-Rahman Abdullah remind us that there is still hope for the future. Yet this optimism for light and pleasantries must be tempered with a cautious mindfulness. In this sense, both fear and hope are useful incentives. Harnessed in unison, they urge us to action, to make the best plans for an uncertain future.