2024 - Dana Awartani
Dana Awartani / 1 March 2024 - 10 May 2024
Image: Dana Awartani, I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered Iʼd Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming, 2017, installation view, 2024, Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia. Photograph by Sia Duff. Courtesy of Samstag Museum of Art.
Samstag Gallery 3
Seeking to reconsider the forms, techniques, concepts and spatial constructs that define Arab visual culture, in Awartani’s practice the wisdom and poetics embedded in traditional crafts are harnessed to tackle a range of contemporary issues
At Samstag, two moving image works are examples of a varied artistic practice, in which Islamic geometric patterns are interpreted as a highly codified and philosophical language, rather than a lost decorative art, and the domestic and the literary are equally important to cultural record.
Contemplative, political and poetic, Awartani makes a case for beauty in the things we create and their ability to transcend time and attitude. Presented for the Adelaide Festival, her work features as part of Samstag’s Parnati season, where tensions in craft, tradition and decoration are thrown into focus.
A Samstag Museum of Art exhibition for the 2024 Adelaide Festival.
Catalogue essay by Abdelkader Damanii.
In collaboration with The Documentary Film Society, Samstag held two documentary film screenings in response to Dana Awartani's work followed, by a floor talk in the gallery. Read the essay commissioned to accompany the Encounters + Crossovers: Dana Awartani film program here.
Image: Dana Awartani, I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered Iʼd Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming, 2017, installation view, 2024, Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia. Photograph by Sia Duff. Courtesy of Samstag Museum of Art.
Image: Dana Awartani, I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered Iʼd Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming, 2017, installation view, 2024, Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia. Photograph by Sia Duff. Courtesy of Samstag Museum of Art.
Image: Dana Awartani, I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered Iʼd Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming, 2017, installation view, 2024, Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia. Photograph by Sia Duff. Courtesy of Samstag Museum of Art.
Image: Dana Awartani, Listen to my words, 2020, installation view, 2024, Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia. Photograph by Sia Duff. Courtesy of Samstag Museum of Art.
