Bio: Khaled Sabsabi migrated with his family to Australia in 1978 following the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon. They settled in Western Sydney, where Sabsabi now lives and works. Since the late 1980s Sabsabi has worked with communities, particularly those in Western Sydney, to create and develop arts programs and projects that explore the complexities of place, displacement, identity and ideological differences associated with migrant experiences and marginalisation. Sabsabi began his creative life as a hip-hop performer but more recently has produced sound art, immersive installations and theatre pieces. As a video artist, he continues to work across borders of discipline, nationality and culture to create artworks that challenge the passive consumption of media spectacle. Sabsabi has exhibited nationally and internationally in exhibitions including Subject to Ruin, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney (2014); Where We Are Now, 5th Marrakech Biennale, Morocco (2014); The Australian Platform, Art Stage, Singapore (2014); Sharjah Biennial 11, Sharjah, UAE (2013); Edge of Elsewhere, Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW and Gallery 4A, Sydney (2012); Making It New: Focus on Contemporary Australian Art, MCA, Sydney (2009); Out of Place, Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin (2009); Soft Power: Asian Attitudes, Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai (2007); ASIA – EUROPE Mediations, National Gallery, Poznan, Poland (2007); The Resilient Landscape, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney (2007); Interdigitate, The Moving Image Centre, Auckland (2006); and Living Here Now – Art and Politics, Australian Perspecta (1999).
Earlier this year he sat down for a recorded interview with Omar Sakr at the Think+DO Tank Community House. The following is an edited extract of their conversation.
ORIGINS & HIP HOP:
Khaled Sabsabi: Coming from Lebanon during the Civil War, migrating here as a child—from the first day of Year Six at Auburn North primary school, I was confronted with racism and discrimination, but also denial, denial from other kids who I knew. For example, I knew they were Lebanese and they could speak Arabic, but when the white kids were harassing me in school, where I sought to get some common ground, and someone to help me—[instead] they denounced their Arabness.
So these things had a huge impact on me, and that's why I engaged with hip hop. Of course, hip hop was born out of the streets of New York, and born out of the Black movement, and the atrocities and oppressive history of the USA. I could relate to that, bro, I could relate to Malcolm X, I could relate to Huey P Newton and the Black Panther Party… so my process is always, even to this day, it's determined by those experiences.
We saw, of course, the Afghan war. We saw the Chechnyan War with Russia, and then with America and the Allies and the “Coalition of the Willing.” Then we saw Syria, we saw the multiple attacks on Lebanon. We saw Falasteen—Falasteen is always in the blood, even at an early age. And it's just a recurring cycle, it's like a cyclone that used to appear in the distance as a child, but you knew it was there and it was coming. As I'm getting older, it seems like this tornado is spinning closer and closer.
Omar Sakr: So it begins in hip hop, in the lyrics and rhetoric of fighting back against oppression and celebrating who you are. It's an affirmation always, protecting community - how do you go from there to the art that you moved into, mixed media, all the various permutations of art that you got into. And I guess the root of that is also, why art? I know why hip hop now, but then why art?
Khaled Sabsabi: So for me, the idea or the ideal of making “art” as art, inverted commas, visual arts or multimedia arts, it's been an organic flow. I've gone from making hip hop to making sound design to working with NGOs. I’ve been working with NGOs for a long time, and what I'm talking about is both community and cultural. It’s a way to remain on the margins and remaining on those margins, it means that you are not institutionalized as much, right? You're able to do things a little bit freer, you're able to adapt and be more responsive.
Responsive and reactive are two different very things in the ideal of process and practice. Being responsive, you're able to respond to things and situations at your own time, in a way that is thorough and analytical as well, but being reactive is really immediate. Now you can't, you don't have the time to instill change. So being responsive is a good thing. But the turning point for me in terms of art was post 9/11.
HIS FIRST EXHIBITION, BEFORE 9/11:
Khaled Sabsabi: I had made two artworks for an exhibition called Arab Made. Casula Powerhouse, Kon Gouriotis and Lisa Havilah said, “Would you be interested in doing a visual artwork?” and I said, “What's visual arts, like a gallery? Who goes there anyway?” After a little while, I thought, okay, all right, I'll do something. And they said, “Well, what's the artwork?” and I go, “I don't know. I'll just do it when I come.” So I pretty much rocked up with a motor to the space, I got four kilos of Arabic coffee, a big pot and a little stove, some PVA glue. I went down to reverse garbage, picked up, like, three canvases, but they're not real canvases, they're actually blinds, and then I had some old speakers lying around. I had 28 of them, because I used to love experimenting with sound and speakers and frequencies and vibrations. So anyway, I rocked up, boiled the coffee, poured it on the canvases, and did the work “ajiina”. And “ajiina” was the first visual arts work that I did in an arts gallery context.
And it was dealing with a memory, childhood memory seeking refuge during the Civil War while bombs were happening around you. We would go and hide out while the shelling was happening in the bottom of the building, right? It would last sometimes one hour, sometimes it lasts two, three days. Who knows? But as a child, everything is amplified.
The next work that I did was in April 2001, it was called, “Where we at”. I got 12 White “made-in-Australia” T-shirts, and then I found a picture of Osama bin Laden with a microphone like this, so he looks like he's rapping, and got them stenciled onto these T-shirts. I hung up these T-shirts on a clothesline, but they were upside down. The symbolism of turning upside down, it's actually an SOS for help. When you turn a flag upside down, that's what it means: something is happening, we need help.
There was also another component of that work; I brought into the gallery, lawn grass, because I hate lawn—to me, it's the epitome of colonialism. It's the destruction of environment, especially locally, yeah, for people to manicure their lawns. So I brought in lawn, rolled it out in the gallery, it was all nice and green, but the intent was, it's going to die in the end, yeah. And by the end of the exhibition, it died, it became more brown, right? The grass died.
ON EDUCATION:
Khaled Sabsabi: I enrolled in my masters in 1999 at COFA UNSW, because there was a supervisor there. I used to make a lot of sound design for graduates, students that majored in video, and this supervisor would hear my sound, and he said, Who made the sound? This was over several years; then he actually requested that I have a meeting with him. His name was John Gillies, and he said, “Would you consider doing your Master’s here in new media?” This was 98, then I enrolled in 1999. I started; I didn't last very long. I hated the whole construct.
You're basically there with privileged people, yeah? And they're quite arrogant. I mean, this was 25, 26 years ago, so I was a lot younger, and I had a lot more heat. So I told them all to fuck off. And I just switched off, I went back to working at the Migrant Resource Center. in 2001, September 11 happened. I think it was a time for all of our community to rethink. I got a CCD (community cultural development) Fellowship from Australia Council for the Arts, to travel to Beirut and the surrounding region, to make hip hop, essentially look at Arabic hip hop.
That period of travel was about three years on and off. I did a lot of work in Lebanon and Syria and surrounding region, you know, in Palestinian camps, in other camps, in schools and so forth. What I realized while I was in Lebanon and even in Syria, I see everyone had a university degree or a couple of degrees. They all—well, a lot of people had their master's degrees. So seeing the importance of education there was like a moment of enlightenment for me. Why? Because, prior to that, from this place, I felt education is about institutionalism, and you don't want to get institutionalized, right… If you don't have a degree or a master's degree, if you don't have that piece of paper, you'll always be regarded as an outsider. This was in the 2000 period - of course, things have changed now. So I came back and did my Masters. Once I finished it, I said, Now I have this piece of paper, you can shove it up your ass. Now I’m authorized, yeah, and this is the art that I want to do.
ON ACCEPTANCE & REJECTION
Khaled Sabsabi: When I started to make visual arts, people didn't get my work. And it's also important to say that even people within your community won't get your art, and of course, if people within your community don't get your art, and your way of thinking, then it's only logical that for people outside your community, it's going to be amplified, it's going to be even bigger, the ratio, the numbers that don't get your art.
When I went to Beirut, I was already making video art. like, really in-your face work. I met with art centers in Beirut and art makers and already they disregarded me, bro. Here I am going back. Like “Hey, I'm one of you. I'm here, you know, I'm here. What can I help with? Yeah, this is what I do, man. Like, I'm Viva le revolution, you know?” And it was like, “Fuck you, you're a Muslim and you're not from Beirut, you don't come from an established family. You're just a foreigner.”
Omar: Because you're from Tripoli or because you're from Australia?
Khaled Sabsabi: --Australia and Tripoli and you’re Muslim and your parents chose to flee the country, so you have no association.
ART AS CONVERSATION
Khaled Sabsabi: The work that I was making was very clear, even until now. Yes, it's evolved, but it's very clear, man. It's about how, how can we listen to somebody else, to the other, to the alternative, right? It's always been that. Doesn’t matter, you know, I've been called extremist; I've been called sympathizer; I've been called terrorist in my art, and so many things, right? And that's all cool. That's fine. But the thing is, in the art, you can, in a utopic sort of construct, you can present any argument you want, right? Because art is about opening possibilities for conversations. And that's what my art is. It's about seeding those ideas and those question marks.
ART AS LEGACY
Khaled Sabsabi: When I was making that art, there was no one around the world making art like I was making bro, right? Essentially, I was a pioneer in that field. Now you're seeing so many great artists of Muslim background that have come—that's not to sort of big note me, it's to establish the point, to see where I feel fulfilled is that now, at this place, at this juncture, there are so many Australian Muslim artists that are really strong, okay, stronger beyond I've ever been. And the way I see it in my mind might be, you know, naive, I see it as: I'm part of that lineage, I'm part of that journey, and there’s only so much we can do in our lifetime, and others pick up and go further. But in the end, we're all moving in the same stream, right? It is about activism. It is about opening possibilities for conversations to right injustices.
Okay, what do I get out of 30 years of making artwork?
It's not about money, it's not about fame, it's not about ego. In a sense, I look at my artwork as a form of worship.
And worship doesn't necessarily mean—it’s important to do all the pillars—but worship is so vast, and our Prophet, peace be upon him, says that, and that's important to understand, as Muslims. The other thing I get out of my art, okay, like when I did the “Naqshbandi Greenacre Engagement”, that work was made in 2011, and it was shown in Campbelltown as part of “Edge of Elsewhere.” Then the NCA showed it as well. They took it up as a donation and as part of the collection show. The MCA ran that for a year. Man, you know how many people, Omar, like that was 2012 maybe and it ran for a year. Even till this day, I meet young people that come up to me and say, “I remember I saw your work at the NCA. We were on a school visit. And as a Muslim woman, I just sat there and cried because it was the first time I saw something in a museum that actually connected to me”. That is priceless, and that galvanizes your process as an artist and your practice. I've had so many students, so many young people, so many artists, they come and they tell me that, and to me, that is better by far than having a fucking show somewhere. So that's essentially what I get out of my work, and why I do my work.
THE PERSONAL ARCHIVE: A CONVERSATION WITH YOURSELF
Khaled Sabsabi: A long time ago, I made the choice to say that I make work because I want to make work. Okay, it's very important that you as a writer, you sit down and write because you want to write, yeah, not because you know you've got a presentation coming up or reading coming up, you sit down and write. Some artists make work for a show, you know, but I really enjoy and feel fulfilled with making work because I want to, because I'm excited. When I wake in the morning, I'm excited to get to the studio and I get very anxious if I don't go. If I haven't been in the studio making for about a week, I feel lost. So making work’s very important. If you go in my archive, in my studio, you'll find over 1000 works that have not been shown by Khalid Sabsabi, there's thousands actually, like how big is my work already, that you know about, and there's thousands of works that have not been shown. They're just sitting in my cupboards, but I pull those works out every now and I lay them out, I look at them, and I get fulfilled. Looking at them, right? I get fulfilled.
Then I ask myself, what was going on with you, in your head, in your being, at the time when you made that work? And it becomes a conversation with those works and myself, and that inspires other possibilities.
For example, “YOU”, the work “YOU” I did in 2006, after the 2006 33 Day War— Lebanon and Israel, alright. It was a video work of Hussein Nasrallah and he's emitting light out of his face. One becomes two, becomes four, becomes six, until there's a thousand of him. And then he comes back, ebb and flow, right. About two years ago I decided I want to make some object works off that video and I made a new continuation of that work. So what I'm saying is, as long as I'm alive, I’m the type of artist, where I feel—not alive but capable, physically and intellectually—I have the right to go back and re-engage with my works.
Omar Sakr: The works are a record of who you were at that time.
Khaled Sabsabi: Who I was at the time, and who I am now.