Text: Blood, Art and Tears

Text

Artist talks and seminar
2:30pm Saturday 23 August 2008

This event discusses the development of contemporary Arab Australian artistic practice and the transformative cultural narratives of Middle Eastern countries.

The key speakers Jamal Joumaa and Nour Dados - both doctorate students – will present papers exploring social and cultural inspiration in Arab Australian artists’ work and the political context of memory, conflict, public space and art.

Artists featured in the Tales of Colour will also discuss their artistic practice and works from the exhibition.

Artist talks and seminar proceedings

2:30 Introduction: Dr. Brendon Stewart
Presentation: Jamal Joumaa , Australian artists of Arabic origin: Colours and Inspiration.
Artist talk: Ali Abbas
Artist talk: Faisal Al Saadi

3:10 Break & refreshment

3:25 Presentation: Nour Dados, From Place to Memory: Spaces of War/Spaces for Art.

Artist talk: Khaled Sabsabi

3:55 Q & A: Dr. Brendon Stewart

4:10 Close

SPEAKERS

Ali Abbas (Artist, Tales of Colour)
Born Al Nasiriah, Iraq. Emigrated to Australia 2004. Graduated from the Baghdad Academy of Fine Arts 1991. In his detailed and colourful paintings, Ali links the past and present, as colours of popular rugs converge with the Australian landscape to produce a new horizon of cultural fables.

Faisal Al Saadi (Artist, Tales of Colour)
Born Missan, Iraq. Emigrated to Australia 2004. Graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad 1965. Faisal has an extensive and diverse artistic practice, beginning as a painter and a ceramicist in the 1960s, Faisal has also produced delicate jewellery and intricately woven rugs.

Nour Dados
Nour Dados lectures in Communications at the University of Technology, Sydney where she is completing a doctoral thesis titled Lost and Found in Beirut: Memory and Place in Narratives of the City. Her presentation will draw on a number of arts projects produced in Beirut in order to reflect upon the ways that war reshapes cultural spaces and arts practices in post-conflict societies.

Jamal Joumaa (Artist and Curator, Tales of Colour)
Jamal Joumaa curated the Tales of Colour exhibition and is currently completing doctoral studies at the University of Western Sydney.

His presentation examines the emergence of Arab art in Australia and the social factors which facilitated its growth. His research highlights the artistic influences, inspirations, and traditions of selected Arab Australian artists in an attempt to understand their relationship to cultural diversity and contribution to the Australian cultural landscape.

Khaled Sabsabi (Artist, Tales of Colour)
Born Lebanon, emigrated to Australia 1979. From the late '80s, Sabsabi has been actively involved in community work and his strong commitment to social advocacy resonates in his art practice. His work, predominantly video installations, is socially engaged, exploring the polemics and ambivalence of cultural encounters often at points or zones of contact that are deeply fraught.

Dr Brendon Stewart

Dr Brendon Stewart is the academic coordinator of the Masters of Analytical Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Western Sydney. His research brings together analytical psychology, Buddhist thought, cultural studies, ecological theory, creativity and learning. His work encourages the re-telling of important cultural stories in such a way that newness may be incorporated into familiar cultural patterns.