Event Somewhat Eternal, Love is the Message, and Avalanche

Somewhat Eternal, Love is the Message, and Avalanche

Exhibition opening

20 January 2024
3.00PM–6.00PM

Join us for the opening of three new exhibitions from Darug/Sydney-based artist Justine Youssef, American artist Arthur Jafa, and Singaporean artist Dawn Ng.

Across video, textiles, and scent, Justine Youssef’s Somewhat Eternal reveals the manifold impacts of displacement and considers our complicity in reproducing these conditions. Exploring the maintenance of her matrilineal family’s rituals, Youssef considers broader cycles of dispossession and places belief in the alternatives and futures these cultural practices offer us.

In just seven-and-a-half minutes, Arthur Jafa’s roller-coaster montage video Love is the Message, The Message is Death encapsulates African American experience as a tale of resilience. It combines footage shot by Jafa—an artist with a long career as a cinematographer and director—with excerpts from films, newscasts, sports coverage, music clips, and citizen videos to create a poignant meditation on African American history, life, and identity.

Dawn Ng’s expansive practice deals with time, memory, and the ephemeral. For Avalanche, the artist crafted pigmented blocks of ice, then filmed them melting away. Compressing hours into minutes, Ng fast tracks this glacial decay while evoking calming waterfalls and collapsing ice shelves, turning entropy into eye candy.

Installation view, 'Justine Youssef: Somewhat Eternal', UTS Gallery, Sydney, 2023. Photo: Jacquie Manning.

Related Exhibition

Justine Youssef

Somewhat Eternal

20 Jan–07 Apr 2024

Arthur Jafa

Love is the Message, The Message is Death

20 Jan–07 Apr 2024

Dawn Ng

Avalanche

20 Jan–18 Apr 2024

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The Institute of Modern Art acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land upon which the IMA now stands, the Jagera, Yuggera, Yugarapul, and Turrbal people. We offer our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first artists of this country. In the spirit of allyship, the IMA will continue to work with First Nations people to celebrate, support, and present their immense past, present, and future contribution to artistic practice and cultural expression.

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