"The Patterns of Displacement” From “I AM NOT FROM EAST OR WEST… MY PLACE IS PLACELESS" Series

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Cover image: Orizzontale, 8 ½ - Yap MAXXI 2014. Picture by Alessandro Imbriaco
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Published: Nov 30, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32891/jps.v4i3.1224
Keywords:
displacement collaborative project public art social installation Kurdistan Region of Iraq refugee camp Middle East installation art

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Rushdi Anwar
Chiang Mai University

Abstract

“The Patterns of Displacement” from “I AM NOT FROM EAST OR WEST… MY PLACE IS PLACELESS" Series is an immersive social installation realized with the community of Arbat Refugee Camp, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Focusing on the plight of its youth, this ‘tent’ reveals the names of over 280 children whose identities are largely writ invisible, within a political landscape of ongoing international calamity. As an artwork of testimony, its nature (components in pieces that are put back together randomly each time it is displayed) is representative of a collective cultural body (refugees) with little control over their fate and mobility, reduced to a statistic. Rushdi Anwar reveals the dehumanizing reality of these people, his artwork a beacon of hope in increasing awareness of their fragile existence.

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How to Cite
Anwar, R. (2019) “‘The Patterns of Displacement”: From “I AM NOT FROM EAST OR WEST… MY PLACE IS PLACELESS’ Series”, The Journal of Public Space, 4(3), pp. 117–128. doi: 10.32891/jps.v4i3.1224.
Issue
Vol. 4 No. 3 (2019): Art and Activism in Public Space
Section
Art and Activism

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Author Biography

Rushdi Anwar, Chiang Mai University

Rushdi Anwar is originally from Kurdistan currently living and working between Melbourne, Australia and Chiang Mai, Thailand. He is a lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University, Thailand.
He holds a Doctor of Philosophy Art (PhD, 2016), and Masters of Fine Art (MFA, 2010), at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. He has been the recipient of grants and awards, such as: Australia Council for the Arts, Grants (2018, 2016, 2011); VicArts Grants program (2016); Contemporary Art Fair, Installation Zone Award, Toronto, Canada (2016); Australia-Thailand Institute, Grants (2012, 2014); Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) (2012).

Exhibitions
2019    ‘The National 2019: New Australian Art’, Biennial, ART GALLERY OF NSW, Sydney, Australia
2019    The 13th Havana Biennial, Project: ‘Intercambio’, The Casa de Asia Museum, Havana, Cuba
2019    ‘We have found in the ashes what we have lost in the fire', MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai, Thailand
2019    ‘52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS’, ARTSPACE, Sydney, Australia
2018    The 12th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Republic of KOREA
2018    The 21st Biennale of Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia
2018    ‘Temporary Certainty’, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, Australia
2018    ARTBAR November 2018, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia
2017    The 20th JAALA International Biennale, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Japan

References

Albano, C. (2012). Fear and Art in the Contemporary World. London: Reaktion Books.

Downey, A. (2014). Art and Politics Now. London: Thames Hudson.

Downey, A. (2014). "The Jerusalem Show " Ibraaz and the Visual Culture in the Middle East Series. Accessed 22 July, 2019. https://www.ibraaz.org/publications/17.

Farahani, F. (2019). Gender, Sexuality, and Diaspora. London: Routledge,CRC Press.

Robertson, J. and McDaniel, C. (2013). Themes of Contemporary Art : Visual Art after 1980. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Said, E. W. (2000). Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.