New Energy
Kalanjay Dhir, Jonathan Kim, Audrey Newton, Luce Nguyên-Hunt, Nathan Nhan, Angie Pai, Nadia Refaei, EJ SON, Zoe Wong. Curated by Con Gerakis.
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
4 June – 24 July 2022
Sorting rice, 2019, single channel video, 22 min
Picking geranium, 2022, single channel video, 14 min
A sense of location serves as the foundation for Nadia Refaei's artistic practice upon which ideas of cultural memory and dislocation are examined through process and methodologies. Both Sorting Rice (2019) and Picking Geranium (2022) draw upon the knowledge and actions of Refaei's elders and serve as bridges between a family separated by time and place.
Sorting Rice centres on memory as a mode of connection and stems from Refaei's recollection of her tete (grandmother) and aunties scrutinising a pile of rice to remove any bad grains. When asking her mother about such a process. Refaei was surprised to discover this preparatory process was misremembered and fused into the de-stemming of green beans to cook in a rustic tomato sauce. This gap in memory resolves itself through the work as her fictional ritual becomes a real action of connection to culture and family.
Picking Geranium reflects on Refaei's father as the instigation for another fictional ritual. Upon moving to their new house, the artists father misidentifies an overgrown geranium as khobeze, a wild plant commonly foraged and sauteed in and around Syria. This video builds upon her practice of connection to and understanding or heritage, with Refaei's meditative actions clarifying the nuanced relationship between ancestry and the idea of home.
–exhibition text, written by Con Gerakis