Perspectives: Hoda Afshar

Perspectives is an initiative developed by ACE Open, Guildhouse and The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, University of South Australia. This annual series of thought-provoking lectures invites leading artists, makers and thinkers to Adelaide to engage with the compelling ideas currently shaping our world.

Tuesday 7 May 2019

Unmaking Images: Image-making and representation

In this lecture, Hoda Afshar discusses the connection between images and representation, and asks how the medium of photography might be used to untangle them. Retracing the history of her own practice, Afshar recounts how the camera has served her as a tool for exploring issues of identity and marginality, both as a documentary photographer in Iran, and as part of her visual-art practice after migrating to Australia.

Focussing on the themes and approach of her most recent series, ‘Behold’, recently shown at Melbourne’s Centre for Contemporary Photography, and ‘Remain’, made on Manus Island in collaboration with Berhouz Boochani and recently exhibited as part of the MCA’s Primavera 2018, Afshar explains how her concern to share the stories of others has necessarily overlapped with her questioning of the limits of image-making, all the while acknowledging its real potential to reshape how we see the world. This lecture will conclude with a Q&A facilitated by Adelaide based independent curator and arts writer Rayleen Forester.

Hoda Afshar was born in Tehran, Iran (1983), and is now based in Melbourne, Australia. She completed a Bachelor degree in Fine Art– Photography in Tehran, and recently completed her PhD thesis in Creative Arts at Curtin University. Through her art practice, Hoda explores the nature and possibilities of documentary image-making. Working across photography and moving-image, she considers the representation of gender, marginality and displacement. In her work, Hoda employs processes that disrupt traditional image-making practices, play with the presentation of imagery, or merge aspects of conceptual, staged and documentary photography. Hoda’s work has been widely exhibited both locally and internationally and published online and in print. She’s also a member of ‘eleven’, a collective of contemporary Muslim Australian artists, curators and writers whose aim is to disrupt the current politics of representation and hegemonic discourses.

ACE tampinthi, ngadlu Kaurna yartangka panpapanpalyarninthi (inparrinthi). Kaurna miyurna yaitya mathanya Wama Tarntanyaku. Parnaku yailtya, parnaku tapa purruna, parnaku yarta ngadlu tampnthi. Yalaka Kaurna miyurna itu yailtya, tapa purruna, yarta kuma puru martinthi, puru warri-apinthi, puru tangka martulayinthi.

ACE respectfully acknowledges the traditional Country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and pays respect to Elders past and present. We recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land. We acknowledge that they are of continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today.

ACE tampinthi, ngadlu Kaurna yartangka panpapanpalyarninthi (inparrinthi). Kaurna miyurna yaitya mathanya Wama Tarntanyaku. Parnaku yailtya, parnaku tapa purruna, parnaku yarta ngadlu tampnthi. Yalaka Kaurna miyurna itu yailtya, tapa purruna, yarta kuma puru martinthi, puru warri-apinthi, puru tangka martulayinthi.

ACE respectfully acknowledges the traditional Country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and pays respect to Elders past and present. We recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land. We acknowledge that they are of continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today.