Exhibition: Ahmed ElKhalidi with creative collaboration by Rua Hashlamoun, 'Swapped at Birth'

Ahmed ElKhalidi, Glenelg, 2018, digital print on 300gsm Museum rag, 60x42cm

Ahmed ElKhalidi, 1940, 2018, digital print on museum rag, 29 x 42 cm

Ahmed ElKhalidi, So Far from Home, 2018, Arabic Fix and Repair, digital print on museum rag, 21 x 29cm,

February 12 - 23, 2019

Please join us in The Exhibition Space for Swapped at Birth, an exhibition by Jordanian born, Adelaide based artist Ahmed ElKhalidi, with creative collaboration by Rua Hashlamoun.

Opening night:
February 12, 6-8pm

Artist talk:
Saturday, February 16, 3pm
Continues February 12-23, 2019

Adelaide artist Ahmed ElKhalidi documents the journey from Jordan to Australia. Ahmed uses symbolic patches of memory in digital collages to explore places where two familiar environments are interchangeable. The exhibition shows at The Mill during Adelaide Fringe Festival 2019.

ElKhalidi explores the crossover of life, perception and memories from his birth country and his adopted country. For ElKhalidi this was by choice, although he acknowledges that, for many others, this crossover is by circumstance.

ElKhalidi delves into memory, childhood experiences and family photographs from his Palestinian heritage.

Using a blend of recent and historical photography, words, symbols and photojournalism, ElKhalidi reveals a personal story of identity where each environment is swapped, overlaid and blended. Creative collaboration by Rua Hashlamoun records the works of two artists’ stories. They ask the viewer to question the memories the viewer might keep in the same situation. A visual storytelling, this exhibition both resonates with, and facilitates, connections for the many with similar experiences as migrants or refugees.

"I try to raise questions about what memories of 'home' we choose to recall. I high-light  issues such as identity, immigration, and social justice, and challenge/question the role of art in social change. The concept of home for me can be a physical or a psychological place. It changes according to our circumstances, as a place of belonging. It could also be a place of displacement and confusion.

Our memories may be filled with gaps, like our early childhood memories.  These memories can fade and become lost. So I like to play with photos and language to preserve them. I like to explore the importance of words and sentences, and to create visual short stories." - Ahmed Khalidi
 

Ahmed ElKhalidi

Jordanian artist Ahmed Khalidi studied graphic design at the Applied Science University in Amman Jordan, completing his studies in 1994. He is a photographer, graphic designer, illustrator and artist, and has worked on projects including online media, motion graphics, publications and illustrations in Sydney, Adelaide, Amman, London, Doha, Dubai  and Saudi Arabia. ElKhalidi draws his inspiration from urban landscapes, and includes graffiti, advertising imagery and typography in his work from his studio YADURA Design Studio, in Adelaide, Australia.

Presented by:
Jacaranda Images gallery is located in Amman, Jordan. Through principal, Australian Barbara Rowell, the gallery is dedicated to showcasing works on paper by a range of artists. Barbara works  particularly to develop cross cultural ties between Australia and Jordan. The gallery also conduct tours of Jordan for artists and art lovers through 'A Brush with Jordan'.

The exhibition was held in Amman in 2018 under the patronage of the Australian Ambassador. Its Adelaide iteration is made possible with the assistance of the Council of Australian-Arab Relations (CAAR), which supports projects that enhance  economic, cultural and social relations between Australia and the Arab world.

Visual Artist in Residence: Matthew Fortrose, 'Cityboi'

The Mill welcomes Matthew Fortrose, our new Artist in Residence in The Mill's Exhibition Space. Matthew will be in residence from 1 December 2018 - 10 February 2019 working on his project Cityboi. 

Matthew Fortrose’s Cityboi explores our subtle reactions in a built environment, ideas around the placement of objects in the city and how they could be reinterpreted as obstacles in our daily routine, and our unintentional contribution to the landscape. The Mill invites you to witness Matthew’s creative practice and to watch the exhibition unfold in the Exhibition Space across the 10 weeks of the residency. Matthew will be presenting a number of public outcomes as part of his residency, including a mural painting on December 15 as part of The Mill Market at Christmas! 

The Mill’s Visual Arts Curator Adele Sliuzas sat down with Artist in Residence Matthew Fortrose to have a chat about his practice. This is the first in a series of podcasts ‘in conversation’ with artists for The Exhibition Space Residency Program. Listen HERE!
 

Matthew is looking to use the time at The Mill to investigate the local environments and develop and ongoing, process driven body of work. He says: 

‘The work I'm planning on making in my residency will be an exaggeration of the smaller details observed in a city setting. I plan to develop four sets of finished work throughout the residency, encouraging visitors to inspect the progress throughout the duration.

Works exploring our subtle reactions in a built environment, ideas around the placement of objects in the city and how they could be reinterpreted as obstacles in our daily routine, and pieces focusing on our unintentional contribution to the landscape.

From the start of the residency I'll use instagram as the main tool of interaction with audience. Many of the works will allow for involvement with participants, I will encourage people to come in and view the progress throughout the 2 months, and will also have 2 locked in dates with activities for community involvement.

The exhibition outcome will investigate our relationship and contribution to the city through subtle interventions. Using documentation and encouraging interaction through instagram, I’m hoping to make connections with an audience to further discuss navigation and deeper observations within human-made space.’

Artist Biography

Matthew Fortrose is a multi-disciplinary artist whose current practice spans studio paintings and sculptures, outdoor paintings, installation and photography. Working with synthetic materials, Fortrose's work explores and creates tensions between natural and manufactured, intentional and incidental, digital representation and physical artefact. Drawing influence from colour field painting and early Bauhaus graphics, the use of rudimentary tools and industrialized processes assist in constructing a strong visual language towards his work. Using documentation of the built environment, interventions within urban space and explorations into materiality, Fortrose work seeks to engage an audience through a series of investigations around the use of public space, and how this communicates to a formal practice.

About the program
The Mill’s Exhibition Space Residency program is presented in partnership with the City of Adelaide. The program positions artistic process to the fore, allowing audiences direct access to creative research and making. During this residency The Exhibition Space operates with a studio-like mentality where knowledge arises through participation and experimentation. The Mill believes that art positions itself within transitions and passages; it opens up opportunities for incursions through relation. The Exhibition Space opens the creative process to the public in a way that positions the city’s community as foundational to artistic research and the creative process, thereby connecting people to cultural experience, insights, understanding and meaning. The Exhibition Space hosts four residencies across the year. Artists in Residence have included John Blines, memorias exspirare 2 June – 25 August 2018, Louise Flaherty, Memorial for Forgotten Plants, 1 September – 14 November 2018 and Matthew Fortrose, 1 December 2018 – 10 February 2019.

RESIDENCY DETAILS
Matthew Fortrose
Cityboi
1 December 2018- 10 February 2019
The Exhibition Space Residency
The Mill Adelaide
154 Angas Street, Adelaide SA 5000

Exhibition: Taylor Parham, 'am/pm''

Taylor Parham, 9:29pm, 2018, pigment print

Please join us in The Exhibition Space for am/pm, an exhibition by photographer Taylor Parham.

Opening night Friday 16 November 6-8pm
Continues 16-30 November 2018

‘We understand our environment and relate to it through experiences. I aim to capture moments that are in both appearance and experience a contrast to what the vast majority of us are accustomed to seeing. Throughout the night, buildings and locales that are typically hosts to a range of commotion during the day, take on an entirely different aesthetic and feel when devoid of people, cars and general activity. This transition from an energetic experience throughout daytime hours to a silent, near abandoned one come night, is one that I aim to capture in this ongoing project.’  -Taylor Parham

Artist biography
Taylor Parham is South Australian photographer. He holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts having graduated from University of South Australia in 2018. His work examines the concepts of experience and context, capturing views of ordinary locations from a perspective which is both familiar yet unfamiliar. Taylor often spends his nights exploring the city and suburbs, enjoying the solitude that comes with it. He was the 2016 recipient of the University of South Australia’s Pro Vice Chancellor’s Acquisition Prize. He has exhibited at the Helpmann Academy Graduate exhibition in 2016 and 2017. 

Call Out: Exhibit At The Mill (visual arts)

The Mill is calling for Expressions of Interest for our gallery program for late 2018-early 2019.

Expressions of interest are now open for exhibitions to be held in The Mill’s Exhibition Space. We invite artists, collectives and curators to apply. A number of exhibition opportunities are available in late 2018 and the first half of 2019. Gallery Hire is $500 based on a four-week term including bump in and bump out time.

Work by Zoe Kirkwood in The Exhibition Space

John Blines: Memorias Exspirare

The Mill is excited to welcome John Blines as the debut artists in our new visual arts residency series. Blines' work, Memorias Exspirare, explores intrusive childhood memories and their effect on mental health. The intent is to process memories that impact Blines' adult psychological health, through making. It is  personal therapy and experimentation within the broader arts in health framework.

Over the course of three months Blines will establish a ‘studio’ within The Mill's Exhibition Space and create  small objects, evolving and growing the collection as he delves deeper into memory. The exhibition also included previous ‘memory’ works as research, inspiration and nostalgia.  

Blines will be present in The Exhibition Space on Sundays, Mondays and Thursday mornings. For more details watch this space and find The Mill's John Blines Face Book Event page.

This exhibition will also feature public engagement sessions, workshops, discussions and participatory making sessions. (Dates and times TBC.)

The Mill's Exhibition Space program presented in partnership with the City of Adelaide, highlights the practice of art-making and aims to make process more available to audiences.

Projects in The Exhibition Space aim to draw audiences deeper into the process of making, positioning them as central to artistic research. The Exhibition Space operates with a studio-like mentality where knowledge arises through participation and experimentation.

The Exhibition Space presents four 12-week residencies per year, alongside short feature exhibitions. Each resident artist will commit time to developing their practice through discussions, forums, workshops, research and artist talks - both with the artistic community and the general public. The Mill will expedite research by facilitating connections to community groups the artist may wish to engage with, to help broaden their practice.

The Mill believes art positions itself within transitions and passages; it opens opportunities for public incursions into the private and vice versa. Our residency program considers this as the potential performativity of practice.