Them and us
Them and us
digital print Artwork by Abdul Abdullah. Photo by David C. Collins
164cm x 110cm
2011
Winner of the 2011 Blake Prize for Human Justice
Excerpt from Nathan Beard's essay on 'Them and us'
... The tattoo Abdul exhibits in the photographic work Them and Us, an emblem hybridizing the Southern Cross with the Crescent moon symbol of Islam, further confuses and subverts existing codes of nationalism and masculinity which pervasively influence racist attitudes towards the ‘other’. This particular work also clearly articulates a personal struggle for Abdullah, in resolving how to be both a proud Muslim and a proud Australian, two conditions that should not be mutually exclusive but in the current political climate are conditioned to be almost diametrically opposed.