Justine Youssef’s work often begins with moments and places that reconfigure authoritative realities. Her auto-ethnographic films and installations reflect upon the impacts of displacement through forced migration and consider our complicity in reproducing these conditions.
Somewhat Eternal is a multi-sensory installation that draws narrative focus on matrilineal practices and plant histories through new work using scent, video, and textiles, examining how states of refuge can uphold cycles of dispossession, for example, embroidered textiles throughout the exhibition tell of the use of plants in practices of occupation, resettlement, and repair.
Justine Youssef, Somewhat Eternal (film still), 2023, three-channel video, 11:00 minutes. Courtesy the artist and UTS Gallery, Sydney
UTS Gallery
3 October to 24 November 2023
Sydney
Institute of Modern Art
20 January to 7 April 2024
Queensland
