Aziz Hazara - 'Bow Echo'

AZIZ HAZARA - BOW ECHO 2019

Aziz Hazara‘s large-scale video installation Bow Echo, 2019, was premiered at the Biennale of Sydney NIRIN in 2020, on the cusp of the COVID-19 global pandemic. It takes its title from a devastating weather storm that clusters numbers of powerful thunderstorms in a fast-moving straight line. A bow echo can be hundreds of kilometres across, with destructive cyclonic force winds that cause severe devastation in a short period of time.

Growing up in war-torn Afghanistan, whose capital Kabul is often rocked by devastating terrorist attacks – many of them horrific suicide bombings – Hazara has created a compelling work that speaks with a searing simplicity of this ongoing horror. Afghanistan’s population continues to endure terrorist atrocities, even under Taliban rule, that in 2021 replaced the previous decades of international armed conflict. In the artists own words: “The work has been inspired by my own experience of the recurring horrors of suicide bomb attacks that have unsettled the city of Kabul. They are a sort of ‘horror game’ and since 2001 have taken place in different parts of the city, becoming an integral part of its recent history… The question of how best to represent this history and its effect on the lives of individuals has been one of the most persistent questions during the making of this work. Very often, the idea of representation becomes a dilemma.”

Bow Echo, 2019 is presented as an enveloping arrangement of five large video screens hanging from the ceiling in a darkened room that confront the viewer with five images of young boys, all desperately struggling to stand still and be heard playing toy bugles, atop a dramatically windswept mountain overlooking Kabul. This same mountaintop was once the stronghold of local Warlords that controlled the city of Kabul from the same vantage point. The plaintive calls of the toy bugles, which each child is desperately struggling to blow amidst the swirling sand storm, herald the urgency of their community’s plight against continuing repression and acts of unspeakable violence, amidst the cultural desolation of war-ravaged Afghanistan. The intense high-pitched sound of the bugles is overtaken by the sound of the bow echo itself and the growling rumble of drones that along with low flying helicopters have become an almost constant aural backdrop to the city of Kabul. To the artist’s despair, the plight of the people of Afghanistan has worsened in recent years since the Taliban takeover when many nations suspended humanitarian aid and armed conflict persists in some parts of the country between the Taliban and sectors of Islamic State.

Hazara works lives and works between Kabul, Afghanistan and Berlin, Germany.

Above Aziz Hazara, Bow Echo, 2019, production still from 5 channel installation with sound, duration 4:17 mins, image courtesy the artist & Experimenter, Kolkata, India. Previous pages Lisa Reihana, detail in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015-17, UHD video, colour, sound, 64min, Image courtesy the artist and New Zealand at Venice.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge and thank all of the artists whose work appears under the curatorial umbrella of this year’s Perth Festival exhibition However vast the darkness… Aziz Hazara – the award winning Afghanistan born artist currently working between Kabul, Afghanistan and Berlin, Germany; celebrated Aotearoa New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana –who resides and works in Auckland, New Zealand; and the seven artists from the Brisbane-established Aboriginal artist collective proppaNOW: Vernon Ah Kee, Tony Albert, Richard Bell, Megan Cope, Jennifer Herd, Gordon Hookey and the late Laurie Nilsen. Thank you one and all for your dedication to your practice and sharing your vision with the world.

Thank you to Peta Rake, Acting Director/Senior Curator, Curators Amanda Hayman and Troy Casey (Blaklash Creative), Brent Wilson, Senior Exhibitions and Production Coordinator for your generosity and calming presence during our installation and Curatorial Assistant, Isabella Baker, all from the University of Queensland Art Museum, as well as the team at Museums & Galleries NSW coordinating the exhibition’s tour of Australia, for your collective commitment and support in launching the national tour of this important exhibition here in Perth.

I would like to thank Mrs Christine Simpson Stokes AM, Mr Kerry Stokes AC and all of the staff at the Kerry Stokes Collection for their generosity and assistance with the loan of the monumental video work in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015-17, as well as the loan and support for the production of the full-scale facsimile of the panoramic ‘Dufour wallpaper’ Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique, 1804-1805.

A special thank you to Deputy Director, Jane King, who as Acting Director for the last 3 months of 2022 in my absence, was stewarding the delivery of the myriad components of However vast the darkness… Thank you to all the staff at the John Curtin Gallery - especially our Exhibitions, Comunications and Installation teams who have again worked tirelessly to generate another impeccably produced assembly of experiences for our visitors. The staff’s collective dedication and teamwork allow us to meet every challenge and continue to deliver exhibitions of the highest standard.

Thank you everyone.

Chris Malcolm Director, John Curtin Gallery

This publication supports the exhibition: However vast the darkness…

AZIZ HAZARA Bow Echo 2019

LISA REIHANA in Pursuit of Venus [infected]

2015-17

proppaNOW: OCCURRENT AFFAIR

Vernon AH KEE, Tony ALBERT, Richard BELL, Megan COPE, Jennifer HERD, Gordon HOOKEY, Laurie NILSEN

Carrolup coolingah wirnThe spirit of Carrolup children

10 February - 16 April 2023

This exhibition is a Perth Festival event supported by Visual Arts Program Partner Wesfarmer Arts, and Lotterywest.

Publication copyright 2023 John Curtin Gallery unless otherwise stated.

Text Copyright © Chris Malcolm

All rights reserved. This catalogue is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. No illustration in this publication may be reproduced without the permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. All works of art are copyright of the artists.

ISBN: 978-0-6450795-5-5

However vast the darkness… Curator: Chris Malcolm.

Occurrent Affair Acting Director/Senior Curator: Peta Rake, UQ Art Museum with Curators Amanda Hayman and Troy Casey.

Cover Aziz Hazara, Bow Echo, 2019, production still from 5 channel installation with sound, duration 4:17 mins, image courtesy the artist & Experimenter, Kolkata, India