IN PERSON / FREE / EXHIBITION

Yhonnie Scarce, Salote Tawale and Osman Yousefzada

Date 10 June - 29 August 2022
Location Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

Ikon presents Yhonnie Scarce, Salote Tawale and Osman Yousefzada

Ikon brings together the work of three artists: Yhonnie Scarce, Salote Tawale and Osman Yousefzada as part of their Arrivals programme, concerned with the international movement of people and ideas and organised to coincide with the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. Australian Aboriginal artist Yhonnie Scarce presents a major new suspended glass installation, The Near Breeder (2022). Salote Tawale and Osman Yousefzada explore questions of identity and belonging via two new video artworks developed through a ground-breaking collaboration between Ikon in Birmingham and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) in Sydney as part of the UK/Australia Season.

Yhonnie Scarce

Yhonnie Scarce returns to Ikon to continue her residency, begun in early 2020 and disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, before presenting a major new suspended glass installation. Born in Woomera, South Australia, Scarce belongs to the Kokatha and Nukunu peoples. Working with glass, she explores the political nature and aesthetic qualities of the material – in particular corresponding to the crystallisation of desert sand as a result of British nuclear tests on her homeland during 1956-63. Organised by Ikon Gallery and TarraWarra Museum of Art with consultant curator Hetti Perkins.

Yhonnie Scarce with David Burns: Artist Talk
Saturday 11 June | 6pm – 7pm | Ikon
Yhonnie Scarce introduces her new work, The Near Breeder (2022) with David Burns, researcher in the historiographies of sites of nuclear colonialism. |
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Made in Birmingham/Made in Sydney

Made in Birmingham/Made in Sydney presents the work of Fijian-Australian artist Salote Tawale and British-Afghan artist Osman Yousefzada as part of the UK/Australia Season, a major new cultural exchange between Australia and the United Kingdom, celebrating each nation’s diverse and innovative artist communities and cultural sectors. Made in Birmingham/Made in Sydney is a ground-breaking collaboration between the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) in Sydney and Ikon, in which Tawale and Yousefzada explore questions of identity and belonging in contemporary Australia and Britain through two new video artworks.

Ikon is an internationally acclaimed art gallery situated in central Birmingham. Housed in a magnificent neo-gothic school building, it is an educational charity and works to encourage public engagement with contemporary art through exhibiting new work in a context of debate and participation. It offers free entry to all.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) is Australia’s leading contemporary art museum, dedicated to exhibiting, collecting and interpreting the work of today’s artists. Through connecting a broad and diverse public with the work of living artists, the MCA makes contemporary art and ideas widely accessible through a diverse program of Australian and international exhibitions, as well as public, access, and social impact programs. The MCA Collection contains over 4000 works by Australian artists with a strong commitment to works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.

Part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival

Images: The Near Breeder (2022) Yhonnie Scarce, Made in Birmingham / Made in Sydney Osman Yousefzada and Salote Tawale.

Artists

  • Yhonnie Scarce

    Australian Aboriginal artist Yhonnie Scarce (b. 1973) was born in Woomera, South Australia, and belongs to the Kokatha and Nukunu peoples. Working with glass, Scarce explores the political nature and aesthetic qualities of the material – in particular corresponding to the crystallisation of desert sand as a result of British nuclear tests on her homeland during 1956-63. More

    Osman Yousefzada

    Osman Yousefzada is a London-based, Birmingham-born multidisciplinary artist, whose practice has expanded since launching his eponymous label in 2008 revolving around modes of storytelling, merging autobiography with fiction and ritual. His work is concerned with the representation and rupture of the migration experience and makes reference to socio-political issues of today. These themes are explored through moving image, installations, text works, sculpture, and garment making along with performance. More

    Salote Tawale 

    From the perspective of her Indigenous Fijian and Anglo-Australian heritage, Tawale explores the identity of the individual drawing on her personal experiences of race, class, ethnicity and gender formed by growing up in suburban Australia. Having exhibited nationally and internationally, Tawale is also an Associate Lecturer of Screen Arts at the University of Sydney. More