Tarik Ahlip, Lara Chamas and Samira Farah
“Paradise, Beauty and Violence”
To celebrate the final weekend of Tarik Ahlip's ‘Paradise’, on the 30th of April 2022, West Space presented an in-conversation between Tarik and Lara Chamas, facilitated by Samira Farah. Taking inspiration from the bodies of work of the two artists, their overlapping interests and experiences, their conversation unpacks themes explored within ‘Paradise’ around faith, beauty, violence, memory and the Islamic migrant experience as it occurs here in Australia.
Recorded at West Space, April 30, 2022.
This program was supported by City of Yarra through their annual arts grant.
Tarik Ahlip works across sculpture, film, verse and sound; his practice considers poetics as capable of driving epistemic change. He has held solo exhibitions at Chapter House Lane (Melbourne), Alaska Projects (Sydney) and LON Gallery (Melbourne). He is an artist in residence at Parramatta Artists Studios, Rydalmere. He is currently working on a series of short films about the politics of God, and a solo exhibition for Verge Gallery (Sydney) in November 2022.
Lara Chamas is a first generation Australian-Lebanese artist, based in Melbourne. Her practice investigates sub topics of postcolonial and migrant narratives, specifically within the context of her cultural identity, in relation to contemporary Australian and global, political society. Currently a completing a masters by research in fine art at Monash University, central to her research is the expansion on these notions in a more historical and anthropological sense.
Samira Farah is a curator, creative producer and radio presenter. She hosts The Score on Triple R.