Rindu
Badra Aji
7
November 2019
7
November
2019
29
November 2019
Gallery 2
Rindu, in Bahasa Indonesia, is the feeling of longing for loved ones or a familiar place. Drawing from his personal photographic archives and real encounters, Badra Aji puts together a semi-narrative work that sits between the melancholic and absurd. Images are cut and reconfigured, portraits are partially covered, whilst parts of the images are left empty. Using drawings as visual poetry, Aji presents the idea that the feeling of being lost has nothing to do with our physical location. Displacement does not emerge from the absence of home. Instead, it comes up when one’s cultural and philosophical background is not understood by their surroundings. Being displaced is not the same as being in the wrong place; displacement is a result of being unwelcomed.
Rindu, in Bahasa Indonesia, is the feeling of longing for loved ones or a familiar place. Drawing from his personal photographic archives and real encounters, Badra Aji puts together a semi-narrative work that sits between the melancholic and absurd. Images are cut and reconfigured, portraits are partially covered, whilst parts of the images are left empty. Using drawings as visual poetry, Aji presents the idea that the feeling of being lost has nothing to do with our physical location. Displacement does not emerge from the absence of home. Instead, it comes up when one’s cultural and philosophical background is not understood by their surroundings. Being displaced is not the same as being in the wrong place; displacement is a result of being unwelcomed.
Badra Aji
Badra Aji works primarily with drawing and video. He uses his practice to directly contemplate his life experiences, creating work which becomes the tangible artefact of this process. Drawing from his own experience of immigrating to Australia, Aji purposefully positions the viewer as an outsider by creating a disjuncture between imagery and language. Poetic and rich in personal symbolism, his work is instilled with a political undertone.