Tahmina Maskinyar
“10am, 30 April – 7:39pm, 8 May ”

We start with over 100 works by artists placed throughout the gallery, some still in packages, some reclining on their wrapping. Gabriela is unsure of where to begin, with so many stories, individual inquiries, aesthetic gestures laying around us.

Each work holds the potentials that are present when artists imagine.

I encourage Gabriela to begin with memory you hold because the work embraces the earnest values that have focussed Gabriela over the last five months in the careful production of this mammoth project. Hand-stitched by Gabriela into a textile are the words for grandmother, mother and daughter in the Sinhala language, drawn from her paternal ancestry. The circular composition in the work tends to batik dying techniques and comes from imprints of doilies, a craft practiced within her maternal lineage. The work connects to reciprocal cycles present in ancestry. In its title is an invitation to reflect on what is held within us, what is embodied and often subconsciously gifting the manner we move through our lives.

It is now the passage in which you begin experiencing the over 100 artworks hung throughout the gallery.

Over the next days under Zamara’s technical wizardry, Vinny and I support Gabriela as she places each work in position, deeply considering the dialogue between concept and composition.

Joanna contains the periphery tasks to enable our team to focus on the presentation of the LABOUR & LOVE exhibition. Several volunteers lend their time and artworks, their presence always an enrichment to the working day. Artists drop their work off, thanking us instead of being acutely aware that their participation is an action that strengthens this organisation's capacity to continue.

West Space exists because of and for artists.

In the West Space Window, Khaled Chamma commences the installation of his monumental work Fireplace, an illustrative dream entwining his being and the forces of his emotions against 22 artworks presented at West Space that have deeply impacted him. The installation should humble any arts writer as Khaled demonstrates the capacity of his observations, akin to spiritual awakenings in each gestural stroke.

Against this backdrop I am aware that the ability to really think, to sit deeply and ponder an idea or concept, to read and understand it fully, to fully participate in the fruition of its material form feels harder and harder. It requires a certain autonomy from the perils of our capitalist reality, as well as a healthy relationality. These are being degraded on so many fronts, interpersonally, collectively and often due to state sanctioned structures feeding for-profit labour systems.

Artistic labour can be a counterpoint to this as artists hold this toil and show up anyway. This is not to say such an existence should be placed on a pedestal, but when you truly get to an awareness of everything at play in our contemporary, an artist making work is a very considered decision.

We are consistently humbled by the labour of love artists offer. Being a part of the structures that are intended to champion and support artists is a privilege. In the many relations that have and will encircle West Space, our organisational intent is to constantly meet each with curiosity, kindness and reflection. With an ultimate hope to continuously learn and support artists in ways that matter.

It is within this premise that we hold gratitude and purpose to undertaking this fundraiser, for the future of West Space and the artistic community we serve.

Big love,

tm