Familiar Stranger

Overview

Familiar Stranger at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art sets out to examine the space between memory and reality that plagues the act of returning. Featured artists Shumon Ahmed, Chun Yin Rainbow Chan, Bashir Makhoul, Veer Munshi, Shireen Taweel and Curtis Taylor draw from the familial archive and personal memory to express the constant internal struggle between what is and what was.

The exhibition presents place as a space defined by uncertainty, adopting the perspective of the returnee as they seek to retrace their memories in places that have transformed. The artworks explore the idea that if you're a migrant, the idea of moving "home" becomes an implicit part of who you are — and the act of returning is an unpredictable, not necessarily joyful one.

Will no doubt strike a chord with anyone who has returned home after time away and found it not what they expected it to be.

Image: Shumon Ahmed, What I have forgotten could fill an ocean, what is not real never lived (2013). Polaroid photos, analogue telephone set, original soundtrack originally composed by Yusuf Khan and recited by Nader Salam. Image the artist and Samdani Art Foundation & Project88, Mumbai, India.