Nadia Refaei
 ناديا الرفاعي


  1. Sabaar and Other Counter Archives
  2. A Whisper Echoes Loudest
  3. olive branch (curator)
  4. Thomas’ Garden (co-curator)
  5. Dawit Dersolign (co-curator)
  6. a garden for the things you love
  7. New Energy
  8. Roots
  9. Leading Letters
  10. Rehearsing the Future
  11. Making Ground (curator)
  12. Make Kabsah With Me
  13. 1998-2011 / ١٩٩٨-٢٠١١
  14. Both sides of either wall (co-curator)
  15. In Visible Woman
  16. Plastic Women

About
CV





New Energy


Kalanjay Dhir, Jonathan Kim, Audrey Newton, Luce Nguyên-Hunt, Nathan Nhan, Angie Pai, Nadia Refaei, EJ SON, Zoe Wong

Curated by Con Gerakis

4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art 

4 June – 24 July 2022A sense of location serves as the foundation for Nadia Refaei's artistic practice upon which ideas of cultural memory and dislocation are examined through process and methodologies. Both Sorting Rice (2019) and Picking Geranium (2022) draw upon the knowledge and actions of Refaei's elders and serve as bridges between a family separated by time and place.

Sorting Rice centres on memory as a mode of connection and stems from Refaei's recollection of her tete (grandmother) and aunties scrutinising a pile of rice to remove any bad grains. When asking her mother about such a process, Refaei was surprised to discover this preparatory process was misremembered and fused into the de-stemming of green beans to cook in a rustic tomato sauce. This gap in memory resolves itself through the work as her fictional ritual becomes a real action of connection to culture and family.
Picking Geranium reflects on Refaei's father as the instigation for another fictional ritual. Upon moving to their new house, the artist’s father misidentifies an overgrown geranium as khobeze, a wild plant commonly foraged and sauteed in and around Syria. This video builds upon her practice of connection to, and understanding of, heritage, with Refaei's meditative actions clarifying the nuanced relationship between ancestry and the idea of home. 

–Con Gerakis, exhibition text

Sorting rice, 2019, single channel video, 22 min and Picking geranium, 2022, single channel video, 14 min. Installation view, New Energy, 2022, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Images: Garry Trinh.