Exhibition: CONTACT
Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm and Thursdays until 7pm (closed on public holidays)
CONTACT
MONDAY 1 FEBRUARY - FRIDAY 26 MARCH
THE BOB HAWKE PRIME MINISTERIAL CENTRE'S KERRY PACKER CIVIC GALLERY
Opening Hours: Monday - Friday, 9am - 5pm (Thursdays until 7pm)
Hawke Building Level 3, UniSA City West campus, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide MAP
Commissioned and presented by The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, as part of Adelaide Fringe
CONTACT brings together a group of diverse emerging artists exploring the themes of identity, politics, race, migration and modern slavery through photography, painting, installation and video. Curated by South Australian artist Elyas Alavi.
Invited artists include Kim Sunyoul (South Korea), Makeda Duong, Jonathan Kim and Abrahim Mohammadi (Australia), Beverley Onyangunga and Orna Kazimi (United Kingdom) Aziz Azizyar and Abbas Asi (Afghanistan), Zubaida Husaini (Iran), the Ebinum Brothers: Victory and Marvel Ebinum (Nigeria) and Abdullah Alavi Jafari (Afghanistan).
Although each artist has a different experience, they have a shared understanding. Their practice engages in a process of auto-ethnography, where they connect their personal history and circumstances to broader cultural, social and political concerns.
These stories are often not well known due to a lack of avenues to communicate with the outside world.
Read more about the exhibition in the essay, The Space Between, written by Rayleen Forester.
There will be an opportunity to meet Curator, Elyas Alavi who will be in the Gallery to talk about the artworks:
11 March, 5:30pm - 7pm
18 March, 5:30pm - 6.30pm
Winner of Week 2 - Best Visual Art & Design Adelaide Fringe Award &
2021 BankSA Best Visual Art & Design Adelaide Fringe Award
ARTIST AND CURATOR
ELYAS ALAVI
Elyas Alavi’s practice is interdisciplinary bridging elements from poetry to visual arts, from archive to everyday events with the intention to address issues around displacement, trauma, memory, body and sexual identity. Alavi graduated from a Master of Visual Arts at the University of South Australia in 2016 and a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) in 2013, and has exhibited at Mohsen Gallery (Tehran), Firstdraft (Sydney), Robert Kananaj (Toronto), IFA (Kabul), Chapter House Lane (Melbourne), UTS gallery (Sydney) as well as Ace Open, Felt Space, Nexus Arts, CACSA Project Space (all Adelaide).
He is the recipient of a 2019 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship and currently studying a Master of Fine Arts at Chelsea College of Arts, University of London. Alongside his visual art practice, he has published three poetry books in Afghanistan and Iran, receiving critical acclaim and a number of literature prizes: International Peace Poetry Prize winner (2011Tajikistan), The Annual Reporters Poetry Prize (2009- Tehran), Young Poet’s Book of the Year (2008-Iran) and Afghan Young poets prize. He regularly runs art and poetry workshops in schools and community centres in Adelaide.
Elyas Alavi website
Elyas Alavi Instagram
ARTISTS
MAKEDA DUONG
Makeda Duong graduated from the South Australian School of Art in 2013 with a Bachelor of Visual Arts specialising in textiles. Following on from her degree, she has participated in two artist’s mentorships with Adelaide artists Cheryl Hutchens and Sera Waters. Since 2013 she has exhibited locally and interstate, and participated in a Studio Residency at Nexus Arts as part of the SALA Festival 2020, which culminated in her second solo exhibition. Her current practice attempts to unravel and represent aspects of her lived experience in relation to themes such as race, gender, sexuality, and mental health.
Makeda Duong website
Makeda Duong Instagram
ORNA KAZIMI
Orna Kazimi is an interdisciplinary artist based in London. Orna’s work and research explore personal encounters of migration in relation to collective memories of displacement through drawings, installation and writing. Her works have been shown at sight and sound workshop at Tate Exchange- Tate Modern- London 2018, Centre de la Gravure et de l’image imprimée museum-Belgium 2018, Art Amongst War: Visual Culture in Afghanistan-TCNJ Art Gallery- New Jersey 2014, 4th Afghan Contemporary Art Prize Exhibition- Queen’s Palace- Afghanistan 2013. She was awarded the Caspian Arts Foundation Scholarship (2016) and studied at the Central Saint Martins in London (2018).
AZIZ AZIZYAR
Aziz Azizyar is a Kabul based photographer graduated from a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the faculty of fine arts university of Kabul in 2015. his interest in the everyday is permanent in his series of documentations in relation to war and memories of war, how does these events inform one another and how they communicate in the context conflict zone. Aziz has exhibited in Queen’s palace (Kabul), Loyalist Collage (Belleville, Canada) and Art Gallery of Mashhad (Iran).
JONATHAN KIM
Jonathan Kim was born and raised in South Korea and spent most of his 20s in China and 30s in Australia. Like his nomadic life, Kim's art contains various cultural elements. Kim’s core research places a deep importance on the relationship between a medium and its environmental factors, named as Gong-gan-seong (spatiality), which has been inspired by Korean artist Lee Ufan's philosophy of Man-nam (Encounter). Kim was awarded the Constance Gordon-Johnson Sculpture Prize and Linden New Art Award. Kim completed the British School at Rome Residency and Sauerbier House Culture Exchange Artist in Residence and currently works at the ACE Open studio.
Jonathan Kim website
Jonathan Kim Instagram
ARTISTS CONTINUED
BEVERLEY ONYANGUNGA
Beverley Onyangunga is a graduate from University of Arts London in 2020. As an artist working with found photographs; she uses these images to invite the viewer to engage and question histories connected to capitalism and conflict minerals. Rooted in a revisiting of history, Beverly's work expresses a duality - gripping visuals coupled with a dark unsettling commentary. Beverly’s practice is versatile, unbound by medium specificity. Her concepts use a variety of media to explore complex ideas. Her work tells untold tales - investigating the notion of identity, politics and race.
Beverley Onyangunga website
Beverley Onyangunga Instagram
KIM SUNYOUL
Kim Sunyoul graduated from MA at the Chelsea College of Arts, London in 2020. The main context of his work began with the suspicion that imperialist countries, which have built many colonies in the past, still exert influence on human society in various fields such as culture, politics, and economics in the name of developed countries. As a Korean who a person in a country with past colonial experience, it was natural for him to have antipathy toward the imperialist country, which I had been receiving through education and media since he was young.
Many post-colonial theories argue that the Third World countries are still colonized. As such, many developing countries, including Korea, quickly embraced the technology and culture of powerful countries with economic power, and at some point they admired their culture. Of course, it is true that this combination of two cultures has created a new hybrid culture, but there are also side effects that make their own identity disappear.
ABRAHIM MOHAMMADI
Abrahim Mohammadi primarily working in form of painting exploring themes of migration, exile, and social injustice. Born in Afghanistan and grow in Pakistan, he moved to Australia 2019 and currently studying a Bachelor of Contemporary Art at the University of South Australia. He has received formal training in traditional Mughal miniature painting in Pakistan. His recent works are mostly focused on the contemporary trends of Eastern art.
ABBAS ASI
Abbas Asi was born in 1996 in Kabul, Afghanistan. He graduated from a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Kabul University in 2019 specialising in photography. He is a member of a photography group known as Esteqhra photographers.
ZUBAIDA HUSAINI
Zubaida Husaini is a photographer based in Mashad in Iran. She using her mobile phone, documenting the suburb of Gulshahr which is an area in the downtown of Mashad where different minorities including Afghan refugees, Baloch ethnics and Sunni faith communities live.
EBINUM BROTHERS
Victory Ebinum and Marvel Ebinum are brothers, born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. They are artistic directors, movement directors, choreographers and performers well known as the Ebinum Brothers. They have been dancing together for more than 10 years now and are self taught. They are inspired by life experiences and always incorporate that into their choreographies in order to inspire people. The fraternal duo are known for their connection and storytelling through movements. Their captivating expression makes you feel exactly what they are feeling - leaving viewers speechless and emotional. They received global attention when they made their first short film in 2020. Their second film VOICE, a short film about Black Lives and humans, was created to inspire people to share their story and speak up through art.
ABDULLAH ALAVI JAFARI
Abdullah Alavi Jafari is a self-taught visual artist and experimental musician originally from Afghanistan and currently based in Mashad, Iran. working primarily with painting, moving image, Abdullah’s work explores ideas around identity, migration and time.
Abdullah Alavi Jafari Instagram
RAYLEEN FORESTER, CATALOGUE ESSAY WRITER
Rayleen Forester is an Adelaide based, independent curator and arts writer. In 2010 Rayleen was awarded the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Travel Grant to collaborate with Japanese curator and Gallery Director Katsuya Ishida where she lived and worked for two and half years. Rayleen’s curatorial interests focus on cross-cultural engagement, community and kinship through contemporary and experimental art practice, performance and writing. She was awarded the inaugural Curator Mentorship Initiative grant (2012) through NAVA to work with established international curator Cuauhtémoc Medina at the second largest European Biennale MANIFESTA. She co-curated the long established Artists’ Week symposium in 2014 with Lars Bang Larsen (DEN) and Richard Grayson (UK). In 2016 she completed a residency at ICI New York as part of their curatorial hub program. She writes for national publications and is a founding member of initiatives FELTspace (SA) and fine print magazine (SA). In 2016 she curated Playground presented at JamFactory, Adelaide, SA and FX Harsono: Beyond Identity at Nexus Arts. In 2018 she was writer in residence at ARTWORKS for Guildhouse and in 2020 she is Curator in residence at ACE Open.
Rayleen Forester has written an accompanying essay for the CONTACT exhibition, titled The Space Between.
HERO IMAGE: Clockwise: Makeda Duong, Mixed Race Sweater, Hand Knitted Merino Wool, 2020, Photo credit Morgan Sette; Jonathan Kim, The Cultural Distance, 2020, Table, Chair and Cushion, Photograph Sam Roberts; Jonathan Kim, Installation View, Density, 2020, FELTspace, Adelaide; Sunyoul Kim, Negotiation, 2019, Oil Paint And Baked clay, Courtesy Of Artist.
COMMISSIONED AND PRESENTED BY THE BOB HAWKE PRIME MINISTERIAL CENTRE,
AS PART OF ADELAIDE FRINGE
While the views presented by speakers within The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre public program are their own and are not necessarily those of either the University of South Australia, or The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, they are presented in the interest of open debate and discussion in the community and reflect our themes of: Strengthening our Democracy - Valuing our Diversity - Building our Future.
The copying and reproduction of any transcripts within The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre public program is strictly forbidden without prior arrangements.
While the views presented by speakers within The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre public program are their own and are not necessarily those of either the University of South Australia, or The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, they are presented in the interest of open debate and discussion in the community and reflect our themes of: Strengthening our Democracy - Valuing our Diversity - Building our Future. The Hawke Centre reserves the right to change their program at any time without notice.
