KHALED SABSABI: INTEGRATION, ASSIMILATION AND A FAIR GO FOR ALL

SYDNEY. 13 JUNE – 25 JULY 2009.

Integration, Assimilation and a fair go for All is the latest project in Khaled Sabsabi’s ongoing body of work that addresses ideas of contact and conflict. Sabsabi is an artist who is not only engaged politically, but an artist who offers us different ways of thinking through relationships and place in the world.

The multi-channel video installation occupies both levels of 4A, and comprises work made over the last three years which invert our expectations and questions viewer’s level of engagement. The three-channel video installation titled Left-Centre-Right, depicts an ominous storm sequence over the suburbs near Newcastle. This natural event was documented by the artist in 2007, and has an eerie similarity to news imagery of war offensives in other countries. The video installation Australian is a 12 channel video installation of oscillating human faces, fragments of noses, eyes and mouths, collaged from various faces across many different cultures, and is visible 24 hours a day.

Born in Lebanon, Khaled Sabsabi migrated to Sydney in the 1970’s. He has worked across sound, music production and the visual arts in Australia for the past 16 years. From 2002-2004, he completed an Australia Council fellowship in Beirut. Internationally he has participated in exhibitions in Beirut, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Auckland; Zendai MoMA Shanghai and recently Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin. Working across Western Sydney he has exhibited at Campbelltown Arts Centre, Casula Powerhouse and Blacktown Arts Centre.