Moving Nations

Antidote, an online platform that celebrates and encourages the cross-sections between art and social change, are hosting an exhibition titled ‘Moving Nations’ at Collab Gallery. The organisation has invited international and local artistsAbdul Abdullah, Olga Cironis, Eugenia Lim, Peter Drew, James Nguyen, Dean Cross, Justine Youssef and Penny Ryan, to explore the movement of people and the effects that manifest from this change in physical location. This topic, which has become increasingly sensitive in our current political climate, aims to share the cross-cultural experiences that have helped to shape the contemporary Australian identity. By highlighting the long lasting effects of migration and the experience of acculturation/enculturation, the exhibition hopes to spotlight the ways in which immigration can play an important role in shaping the individual.

Dean Cross, Dropping the Bullshit (we look like this too), 2016, digital image, 2016. Courtesy the artist

 

The exhibition follows on from a previous group show by Antidote, ‘Anthropocene’, which reflected on the cultural stories attached to the female body in the context of geological, physical and natural worlds. ‘Moving Nations’ contributes to this narrative by exploring how physical movement can effect “our current definitions of nationhood, patriotism and what it means to belong”, which when told from a diverse range of perspectives can help us to gain a better understanding of all the influences that shape the identities of immigrant Australians.

 

For artist Abdul Abdullah this meant looking at the way the stigma attached to his Islamic upbringing has affected his place in contemporary culture. The artist acknowledges that beneath the surface of Australian society “the more insidious kind [of racism] is always there, just under the surface. It comes in the way people react to my name, and in the subtle differences in which they treat me.” For Abdullah, this has taken representation in his work where he expresses his frustration that is rooted in his classification as the ‘other’ despite having been born and raised in Perth. The artist uses his work to poetically convey the duality of belonging to such a rich, religious culture in Australia.

Eugenia Lim, Artificial Islands (Interior Archipelago), 2017, performance/installation at Firstdraft, Sydney; sand, plastic, gold emergency blanket, bamboo, 270 x 270 x 10cm. Photograph: Catherine McElhone. Courtesy the artist

Other artists exhibited feel a similar way about how their cultural backgrounds effect their affiliation to the landscape and people of Australia. For Melbourne-based artist, Eugenia Lim, having Chinese heritage means that she never quite felt at home in either country, a condition common for those living in Diaspora. On the topic, the artist quips “my aim is to insert and claim space and territory for marginal identities within the mainstream, using my experience and perspective as a feminist Asian-Australian.”

Together the artists create a cohesive vision of what it means to have your identity rooted in two different cultures, by inviting a wide range of perspectives that includes artists of Aboriginal, Chinese and Islamic decent.

Collab Gallery
7 June to 17 June, 2017
Sydney

 

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