As we find ourselves propelled into Gregorian 2019 and all the feels associated with the last days of summer, it’s good to remember that time can be experienced in different ways.
Holding Time
Featuring
Agus Wijay and Mika Benesh
Featuring
Right now in Redfern, it is the time of Bhurran in the Dharawal calendar, hot and dry and full of fire. For the artists of HOLDING TIME, it is also the beginning of the Chinese lunar new year in the 12th zodiac, with hopes that the pig will lead us towards good fortune and good times (particularly between 9 and 11pm each night… good to know, right?). We are also approaching mid-year 5779 on the Hebrew calendar and Purim celebrations, where gifts and charitable acts are exchanged, often with wine involved. These may sound good to us, but times like this can also be bittersweet.
In our STREETSPACE, Chinese-Indonesian artist Agus Wijaya sounds out the Chinese New Year in remembrance of his childhood where such celebrations could only take place discreetly due to ethnic and political oppressions. Referencing the death and looting that he lived through during the May ’98 riots across Java, his sculptural work in the window and animation works on our TAXIDERMY T.V. explore the ‘othering' of himself and his family, and how those experiences continue to ripple through so many lives today. In THE SALON, Ashkenazi-Mizrahi Jewish artist Mika Benesh interrogates his own place in the world through complex narrative reconstructions that combine drawing, archival objects and family photographs.
Some would say that to hold onto time and memory is to dwell in the past, but we think holding time is more like a quiet waiting… for patterns to emerge and understandings to be shared. This show is about holding open space for these remembrances and retellings of histories, both personal and cultural. And we think it’s been worth the wait.
