Two Oceans At Once
14.02.19-17.05.19
Group exhibition, ST Paul St Gallery, Auckland
Curated by Cameron Ah-Loo Matamua and Charlotte Huddleston
https://stpaulst.aut.ac.nz/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/2019/two-oceans-at-once
Review by Talei Si'ilata: https://www.pantograph-punch.com/posts/review-two-oceans-at-once/
Exhibition text:
...In Rozana Lee’s Adzan, 2018 the aural landscape of Aceh, Indonesia is peopled by the sounds of rolling waves, passing conversations and the recitation of the Islamic call to prayer. Nationhood, boundary, belonging and togetherness are called into interrogation, asking the viewer to consider the stability of identity formation in our current era, and indeed of times past. In Lee’s practice diaspora becomes a complicated term: how many generations make a complete belonging to a place?; on whose land do I stand?; what nation do I lay claim? The impetus of culture-making is made apparent, made makeshift, and deconstructed. In her extended batik cloth, The Dreams We Share of Freedom and Love, 2019 the artist uses traditional making processes and tools, like the Tjanting, only to leave the work “incomplete,” or “non-integrated,” by not boiling off the wax. What would usually be a trace now becomes a marked gesture of the “in-between,” or what Homi Bhabha labels as the “interstitial space.” Lee pulls from the sources most close to her, navigates the trails she finds herself most akin to, in the hopes of creating a condition that “allows newness to come into the world.
Photos by Sam Hartnett and Artsdiary, courtesy of St. Paul St Gallery
14.02.19-17.05.19
Group exhibition, ST Paul St Gallery, Auckland
Curated by Cameron Ah-Loo Matamua and Charlotte Huddleston
https://stpaulst.aut.ac.nz/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/2019/two-oceans-at-once
Review by Talei Si'ilata: https://www.pantograph-punch.com/posts/review-two-oceans-at-once/
Exhibition text:
...In Rozana Lee’s Adzan, 2018 the aural landscape of Aceh, Indonesia is peopled by the sounds of rolling waves, passing conversations and the recitation of the Islamic call to prayer. Nationhood, boundary, belonging and togetherness are called into interrogation, asking the viewer to consider the stability of identity formation in our current era, and indeed of times past. In Lee’s practice diaspora becomes a complicated term: how many generations make a complete belonging to a place?; on whose land do I stand?; what nation do I lay claim? The impetus of culture-making is made apparent, made makeshift, and deconstructed. In her extended batik cloth, The Dreams We Share of Freedom and Love, 2019 the artist uses traditional making processes and tools, like the Tjanting, only to leave the work “incomplete,” or “non-integrated,” by not boiling off the wax. What would usually be a trace now becomes a marked gesture of the “in-between,” or what Homi Bhabha labels as the “interstitial space.” Lee pulls from the sources most close to her, navigates the trails she finds herself most akin to, in the hopes of creating a condition that “allows newness to come into the world.
Photos by Sam Hartnett and Artsdiary, courtesy of St. Paul St Gallery
Install image, 'The Dreams We Share of Freedom and Love' 2018, in 'Two Oceans at Once. Photo by Sam Hartnett, courtesy of ST. Paul St Gallery
