Khaled Sabsabi wins Blake Prize for Religious Art
by campbelltownartscentre
Khaled Sabsabi, Naqshbandi Greenacre Engagement, 2011, installation view, three-channel video projection, commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre, photography: Susannah Wimberley
Congratulations Khaled Sabsabi, who has won the 60th annual Blake Prize for Religious Art with his video work, Naqshbandi Greenacre Engagement (2010).
Sabsabi is a participating artist in Edge of Elsewhere, and developed Naqshbandi Greenacre Engagement during a period of intensive research for the exhibition. The three-channel video is a work that was born out of Sabsabi’s rigorous and commited engagement with members of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order of Australia, both in Greenacre, western Sydney and Melbourne. Sabsabi’s work reveals to us a view into the spiritual and communal gatherings of members of the Greenacre Order who come together on a weekly basis in a local Australian Scout halls for spiritual meditation in the form of Zkir ceremonies. Members from a variety of cultural backgrounds embraced the artist into their ceremonial setting, allowing both him and us as the audience to witness a world that eloquently explores the visual manifestations of subtle social realities of the power of shared spirituality and geography, in the context of contemporary Australian suburban existence.
Sabsabi has recently been travelling through Lebanon, Syria and the surrounding area to research and develop new work for Edge of Elsewhere 2012.
Full details of the other Blake Prize award winners can be found here.
