The Sound of Silence /صدای سکوت

 2024, rubab instruments, neon 

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney & Art Jameel 

currently showing at UNSW Galleries as part of 24th Biennale Sydney curated by Inti Atawalpa & Cosmin Costinas

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In a trip to Broken Hill town, I saw a rubab instrument that one of the Cameleers brought with him from today's Afghanistan or Pakistan (image 2). This inspired me to research further and creat two new body of work. To my surprise I found out who was the rubab player. He was known as "Kai Shirdel" who passed away 75 yrs ago. I met his 85 yrs old son "John Shirdel". In image 3, he is holding a photo of his father and mother in front of their family house in Broken Hill.

در سفر به نقطه ای دوردست در استرالیا، ربابی را دیدم که یکی از ساربانان بیش از صد سال پیش با خود به استرالیا آورده بود. این بهانه ای شد برای تحقیق و ساختن مجموعه ای چیدمان و کلاژ. در نهایت توانستم نام و عکسی از نوازنده رباب بیابم "کای شیردل". به احتمال زیاد نام کوچکش تغییر داده شده باشد. تنها بازمانده خانواده فرزند 85 ساله اش، "جان شیردل" هست که در عکس سوم، عکس پدر و مادرش را نشان می دهد.

In The Sound of Silence, I have overlaid neon text onto four rubab instruments in a reimagining of the songs and poems that may have accompanied the early cameleers on their travels. 

The excerpts reference four different dialects, acknowledging the diversity of languages spoken by the cameleers, and are translated below: 

" Let’s go to the city of Mazar Mulla Mohammad Jaan!"

Farsi/Dari language: Excerpt of an old folk song by an unknown female poet from Herat, Afghanistan.

"The camel rider will set off (then you’ll rove in desperate search of your beloved)"  

Saraiki language: Excerpt of an old folk song from the Saraiki Baloch people of Pakistan.

 "I’m a lover and love is the only thing I know".

Pashtu language: Excerpt of a poem by renowned poet Rahman Baba. 

"I seem to have loved you (in numberless forms, numberless times)"

Hindi language: Excerpt of a poem by Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore.

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Photo credit :Jacqui Manning

Thanks to Bobby Shamroze, UNSW Galleries

Biennale Sydney, Art Jameel

Vivian_ziherl

In collaboration with Arts House (Melbourne), 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art is co-commissioning an immersive exhibition by Hazara artist, Elyas Alavi. 

Alavi's ALAM عَلَمunfolds through a rich tapestry of symbols, phrases, poetry, faces, body language and community codes, serving as profound reflections on queer Muslim diasporic communities. 

Each alam in this exhibition resonate with references to significant events, highlighting historical and contemporary figures who bravely advocated for their sexual identity and those who tragically lost their lives.

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This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia (VACS Major Projects Grant), its arts funding and advisory body and Create NSW, and is a co-commission between Arts House and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.

2023 neon, red gum rehal, photographic collage

Cheshme-e Jaan explores the forgotten history of Cameleers and their long relationship with the First Nations people. In this work, Alavi reimagines the first meeting between First Peoples and the early Cameleers near a natural spring, honouring the knowledge that was shared when the Cameleers were shown regular water sources, rock holes, creek beds and springs.

Brought to Australia as cheap labour through inter-colonial networks of British India between 1860-1920, the origins of majority of these Cameleers included in today’s Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kashmir, Pakistan and India. In Australia, their extensive network of tracks intersected and ran adjacent to those that had already been well established by First Peoples, and through their encounters and meetings, they build empathy and relationships through share values.

Inspired by rahel (book holder) at the Broken Hill Mosque established in 1887 by Cameleers, this work consists of a series of collages and rahels made from the discarded railway sleepers of the Old Ghan Railway, a railway line that was birthed from the cheap labour of the Cameleers. Onto each are simple patterns carved that is echo aspects of the artist’s hometown of Daikundi Province, Afghanistan.

On top of the rahels, there are two verses of Rumi’s poem in neon:

جان من از جان تو چیزی شنود

چون دلم از چشمه تو آب خورد

My soul heard something from yours

Since my heart drank from your spring

At the time, the Cameleers were vilified by media and government, despite performing a key function in their colonial endeavours. They were given temporary visas, prohibited from bringing their own family, they were refused naturalisation and many cases prohibited from officially marrying in Australia. A century later, thousands of people from the same region as Cameleers, facing similar discrimination because of Western imperialism. There are currently thousands of people who have been living in limbo for up to 12 years. They work in hard jobs and are not allowed to bring their family.

This is the eternal legacy of that The White Australia Policy.

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This body of work is currently shown at TarraWarra Museum as part of Biennial 2023: ua usiusi faʻavaʻasavili.

This project is commissioned and funded by TarraWarra Museum and Australia Arts Council (Project grant)

photo credit Andrew Curtis

In The Sound of Silence (#2), Alavi engages with the histories of Australia’s cameleers, laborers whose lives were intertwined with those of the animals they were brought on to handle, and who immigrated from South and West Asia to help colonize the continent’s arid outback. Though they played a vital role in transporting supplies and building infrastructure, and their music has resonated across the deserts for generations, these laborers continue to face discrimination. Through The Sound of Silence, Alavi honors the cameleers’ music and stories, as captured in oral histories with their descendants, and preserve their forgotten legacy. The project is a collaboration with the 2024 Biennale of Sydney.

The Sound of Silence (#2), 2024
But You are My Home, 2024
VASL, 2024 (with Feroza Hakeem & Raheem Jaan)
All commissioned in 2024 by the Lahore Biennale Foundation and funded by Creative Australia and Create Victoria

That I Could Fear a Door: storie di case e di vento, the first solo exhibition in Italy of the Afghanistan born Hazara artist Elyas Alavi, curated by Exo Art Lab and Simona Spinella.

Borrowing a verse from the American poet Emily Dickinson, the spaces of Palazzo Pomarici open up to an intimate reflection on the concepts of home, belonging and displacement, in a connection that spiritually links the artist's experience to the history of Matera.

Through Elyas' neons, videos and poems, we invite you to explore the complex relationships between the self and society, in relation to issues such as ethnic and cultural belonging, religion, sexual orientation, diaspora and the meaning of the word “home”.

Daydreamer Wolf is a solo exhibition by Elyas Alavi, developed for the 2018 Next Wave x ACE Open x Firstdraft co-commission, the project documents Alavi’s experience as a Hazara refugee and migrant to Australia.

Working across painting, sculpture, documentary video and poetry, Alavi’s practice engages with ideas of family, memory, national identity and displacement. Daydreamer Wolf is his largest body of work to date, and offers a timely and highly personal perspective on the trials and realities of the contemporary refugee experience.

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Daydreamer Wolf is an investigation into issues of identity, memory, migration and displacement through the production and exhibition of new work involving painting, video projection, installation and performance collaborations across visual-art, music, poetry and performance.

The project is a suite of visual art and verbal-musical performance works based on poems I have written since I immigrated to Australia, and are inspired by my experiences as a Hazara refugee. In my book of poems “I’m a Daydreamer Wolf” (2008), I lament on the absurdity of conflict, displacement, and their affective echoes, metaphorically creating a poetic identity, a displaced alter-ego, where I am the daydreamer, dreaming of hope, and the wolf, subject to his own difficult experience and identity.

The history of the Hazara people, to which I belong, is deeply troubled, involving ongoing ethnic genocide, persecution, mass migration and exile for over two centuries. An involved witness, in my own journeys, I have shared stories with exiled friends and siblings, listened to artist and writer friends forced to leave their homes and perilously journey to safety, sharing in their loss, always.

During and after my own journey from Afghanistan to Australia, I have gathered artefacts that belonged to victims of conflict from Afghanistan, clothes from asylum seekers fleeing to Europe (including my own family members) and from former detainees who spent months in mandatory offshore detention centres operated by the Australian Border Force. I have used these artefacts to create artworks, presenting direct material echoes from human being afflicted by conflict.

In Daydreamer Wolf, alongside new static and projected video works, installations featuring artworks created from such artefacts and inspired by the people they belonged to will invite the audience to experience what it can be like to be displaced, to live as a “refugee”. Having documented through still imagery and handheld video many of own journeys of return to my country of origin and places of exile, I have also acted as a voice for others who have experienced similar difficulties, of loss, displacement and separation from kin. The 113 figurative portraits on clear glass are intended to further metaphorically reflect the very human tragedy of displacement. These ghostly portraits will cast shadows on the wall, a second portrait, like an echo. They are there, and they are not. The number 113 is highly symbolic for the Shiite sect of Islam members, which my family belongs to. The widely held belief that one day a chosen 113 people will die and return to this earth to bring eternal peace, after which there will be no more war, no more injustice, infuses me with both a sense of beauty and tragedy, an irony where the hope of a better world contrasts with the seemingly naïve aspiration of accepting fate and giving one’s life over to destiny in the hope that maybe one of those 113 people will be me and I will be saved.

As an artist from the Middle-East, I naturally express part of my creativity through poetry, a pillar of Persian culture and identity. While my creative practice is multi-faceted, drawing both from literature (Persian poetry) and visual art (painting), it has expanded in recent years to include photography, video, installation, documentation and experimental performance which a focus on personal experiences as a Hazara refugee, migrant to Australia and member of the LGBTIQ community.

While I primarily see myself as a visual artist, infusing poetry into visual arts, performance and collaboration through the lens of identity, memory, violence, trauma and displacement provides me with the of revisiting my literary practice under a different light, a new creative language, as I seek to explore and ignite the same emotional and conceptual depth that poetry can possess through visual modes of communication such as painting, installation, video and performance. This project will be the first major opportunity to re-contextualise poetry within my visual art practice both personally and collaboratively, embedding it within a visual art framework through experimental work and continuing material and representative investigations.

The performance component of the project involved a series of collaborative spoken-word, musical improvisations. In these, I invite experimental musicians from culturally diverse backgrounds (two local musicians in each city) to respond to my poetry as I recite and perform it, interacting with elements in the gallery. Surrounded by artefacts and artworks, the musicians will respond to my own physical interaction with the exhibition content. Combining pre-arranged segments, improvisation and some audience interaction, these new performances will present each audience with an entirely unique experience.

Read an accompanying essay by Andy Butler

Not Just a Shadow

نه فقط یک سایه

painting, neon installation, collage and video

uses painting and poetry, realised in neon, to explore the history of Afghan Cameleers in Australia and the complex emotions of memory, displacement, loss and mourning. It draws on the artist’s recent investigations into the forgotten history of Afghan cameleers and their long relationship with the First Nations peoples of Australia. This line of inquiry is underscored by Alavi’s experience as an Afghan-born Hazara man now living in Tarntanya (Adelaide), and the sense of solidarity felt with those who have been similarly displaced by conflict.

For this project, i traveled to Port Augusta, Oodnadatta, Coober Pedy, and Broken Hill.

“Not Just a Shadow” is supported generously by the Arts South Australia Fellowship Grant and Hyphnated Projects.

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Photo by Rosina Possingham

Let the Bād Speak

group exhibition

fondazione107 Gallery,Turin, Italy

8 Oct-27 Nov 2023

curated by Exo Art Lab

Exhibition continues until 26 Nov 2023

"Let the Bād Speak" exhibition explores, in a new and delicate way, Iran and Afghanistan's social and political dynamics, and it does so by elevating the art of 7 internationally renowned artists from both countries: @elmiraabolhasani, @hodaafshar, @elyasalavi, @hangamaamiri, @arminamirianart @lati_zafar_attaii and @naseerturkmani .

نمایشگاه "بگذارید باد/بَد سخن بگوید"، تورین، ایتالیا

Thanks to @exoartlab curatorial team (@marta_blan

, @oladelpi & @elen_abbate). really enjoyed working with you.

Thanks @fondazione107, @elmiraabolhasani

& Checharito. local musicians Francesco and Dino.

& dear friend @thekawoon.

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The two months research trip to Europe and exhibition in Turing suported by Arts South Australia and Creative Australia.

After the Fall–an exploration of grief, faith, and end-times

Elyas Alavi has responded to the recent tragic events in Afghanistan(particularly the rapid collapse of the government in August 2021) and researched artists including Kollwitz and Goya who also responded to themes of war, violence, trauma, chaos and the aftermath.

Drowning I ,2022, oil on canvas,76.0x110.0 cm
Drowning II, 2022, oil on canvas,102.0 x 76.7 cm(each panel)
photograph Sia Duff

Poetry and music performance by Elyas Alavi and Noriko Tadano

Curated by Alice Clanachan and supported by Guildhouse and Flinders University Museum of Art (FUMA). Inspired by the mythologies, subjects, and techniques of FUMA’s European print collection dating from the 15th to the 20th centuries.

The Guildhouse Collections Project: After the Fall Presented in partnership with Flinders University Museum of Art.

We die so that is an exhibition of video works, paintings and artefacts that will communicate the true nature of living as a minority in Afghanistan through contemporary storytelling and testimonials. These stories are so often silenced, either by the governments who wish to hide the true scale of conflict or through lack of avenues to communicate with the outside world.

While in Afghanistan during 2016 to document the daily life and struggles of minorities, Elyas Alavi was caught up in the deadliest bombing in Kabul since 2001; a twin attack of a street protest that killed 110 protesters. Participating in the protest himself, Elyas recorded the day, including the hunt for a protester from his own town.

Elyas Alavi is a contemporary artist whose work focuses on identity, memory, violence, trauma and displacement. He has risked his own safety to get these stories to Australian audiences and this new body of work will be a significant step in his creative and professional growth. Few artists in South Australia are creating contemporary visual arts and new media works that communicate the stories of those living in war zones through first-hand accounts.

performance art, 2017, Mohsen Gallery, Tehran, Iran

“Alavi carried out a performance in Tehran in 2017 that drew attention to the otherness attitude towards the many first and second (even third) generation of migrants from Afghanistan in Iran who cannot be donors of blood and also they cannot be organ donors.

In the performance, ‘rag’, meaning ‘vein’ in Persian, Alavi has a qualified nurse in the gallery drawing blood from Alavi himself and other willing visitors, who include a mix of Iranian and Afghanistanis. No one can distinguish which blood sample was from an Iranian donor or otherwise. The blood is placed in plastic pouches and is hung on the wall along a straight line.

Alavi also has a block of ice in the gallery. He makes pockets in the ice and pours in the blood from an Iranian donor in one and from an Afghanistani donor in the other. The ice melts. The blood flows with the melted ice on the floor. “ - text by Arman FR

Early in 2020, Elyas Alavi found a line from one of his poems painted on streets across Tehran, picked up by the community as a rallying cry. Translated from Farsi to English it reads,

As you draw water from a well
and make tea with that water,
doesn't it taste of blood?

The short poem speaks to the toll of war on the individual and—hearing about it from friends then seeing images online—Alavi felt a sense of giving up ownership over his words to the people, an experience intensified by the recent banning of his books by the Iranian government. Although the words were erased from the streets by the authorities, some marks remain. Here, the neon embodies the spirit of the graffiti; holding both the fragility of the human breath and the power of language to speak truths.

Shown as part of fine print’s FIELD NOTES, Sauerbier House, 8 May—19 June 2021.

A series of collaborative performances with Alavi performing his poetry alongside local experimental musicians in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide.

How is it possible to understand the trials and realities of the refugee experience? In this cross-disciplinary exhibition, artist and award-winning poet Elyas Alavi documents his experiences through personal, playful and mythological lenses. Evoking issues of identity, memory, migration and displacement, he offers a deeper understanding of his trials as a Hazara refugee, artist and migrant to Australia.

Ordugah/Detention Camp, performance in Mashad, Iran in 2014

For Afghan artist Elyas Alavi, the suburb of Sakhteman, Iran felt like an ordugah, a detention camp both undocumented and documented refugees live in constant fear of being caught at police checkpoints when leaving or entering. Alavi suggests confinement and geographical control over Afghan refugees in Iranian suburbs; invisible wires fences and walls surround refugee communities living on the fringes of cities. With thread unraveled from jumpers knitted by his mother and worn as a child in Afghanistan, Alavi makes visible the walls of the ordugah.

In this continuing series of painting works on newspaper under the title Hang I have explored a similar visual language, depicting body parts and flesh through a distinctively ‘meaty’ palette. This series focuses on an ‘outer world’ of bitter news and violent events which is part of the everyday reality of life in a country in conflict. In Hang series meat-like forms were painted onto found newspaper spreads collected from different countries that mostly show news about Afghan and Middle-Eastern issues in different languages. The choice of newspaper as support seeks to reflect the situation in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) and the journalism that reports it.

The space Elyas Alavi has created with Derakht-e bi rishe (THE UPROOTED TREE) at the CACSA Project Space is a deeply personal one, housing artworks informed by stories and memories of the homeland he was forced to leave. Incorporating paintings on canvas and found newspapers, photographic imagery, a hand written letter and a frozen sculptural element containing his grandmother’s scarf, the exhibition as a whole operates as an expanded field of painting.

Performance in Kabul, 2014

n this exhibition, Elyas Alavi presents a selection of drawings and paintings that act as a visual diary. Through these works, Alavi has documented and processed his feelings and memories connected to his identity.

The word دیگرگونه / Digar-gooneh holds a special significance in the Farsi/Dari language. It translates to "another way" or "another kind." For many individuals, versions of this word have become a poignant descriptor of their identity—it signifies as an alternative way of existence.