Art Review: Flowers and Fighter Jets
(Originally published in the exhibition booklet.) There’s anger in the eyes of the women Amani Haydar paints. There is strength and sadness as well, which by all accounts, is a reflection […]
Criticism
Memory and faith in the work of Michael Mohammed Ahmad and Khalid Warsame
On a Tuesday night at Gleebooks, between Sydney’s hurried inner-city and its hipstered inner-west, three Australian Muslim writers gathered to talk about their ideas of race and belonging. Writers Somali-Australian, Khalid Warsame and Lebanese-Australian, Michael […]
Memory and faith in the work of Michael Mohammed Ahmad and Khalid Warsame Read More »
TV Review: Addicted Australia
★★★★☆ First published in The Big Issue, 30 October 2020 Addicted Australia, a four-part docuseries from Blackfella Films (Filthy Rich and Homeless), provides viewers access to the lives of 10 everyday Australians struggling with addictions […]
Book Review: A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing
(First posted at Books+Publishing.) Somewhere between wetting her pants during a standing ovation and sleeping with her conductor, violinist Jena Chung finds herself lonely. Set against a backdrop of Sydney suburbs […]
Book Review: Into the Suburbs
(First posted at Books+Publishing.) Christopher Raja’s Into the Suburbs is the author’s first foray into memoir, and documents his migration from Calcutta to Australia in the 80s. Drawn by the glamorous Australia of […]
Book Review: The Lost Citizens
On the 31st October 2019, Daniel Nour and I from Sweatshop Writer’s Collective, attended WestWords October Poets’ Corner event. Reading and talking to the theme of ‘Memory as Place’, was Omar Sakr, a Turkish-Lebanese Australian writer from Western Sydney and author of The Lost Arabs. Until recently, Daniel and […]
Art Review: Terra inFirma
(First pubished by Running Dog.) This year marks 250 years since James Cook invaded Australia and stole Indigenous land with two words: Terra Nullius. In 1770, Australia was declared nobody’s land—although […]
BLEED Festival: Closing
(First pubished as part of the BLEED Echo program, part of the BLEED festival.) BLEED reminds us of the windows we have yet to create, fling open, or completely and irreversibly break down […]
Art Review: Motherland – Exile/Refuge – Migration (repeat)
When my mother stepped off the plane at Sydney’s international airport at seventeen, pregnant and sweating from the humid September heat, she cried. Like her first steps in Australia, the […]
Art Review: Motherland – Exile/Refuge – Migration (repeat) Read More »
BLEED Festival: Save New Changes?
(First pubished as part of the BLEED Echo program, part of the BLEED festival.) Inside the lounge room of my Doonside share house, I sit on the couch and drag my thumb down […]