Curatorial Endnote
Places of belonging are built with lived encounters and collective moments.
In this COVID 19 pandemic, many people experienced loneliness in their familiar spaces; some were trapped in places they did not call home while others returned to a home that they had not set foot into for years, maybe decades.
How have these experiences and observations changed our understanding of ‘home’ and the people we share these spaces with? Are we far away from a place and yet closer to people or close to a place and emotionally distant from people?
Zoya Siddiqui is a keen observer of her own surroundings as well as the immediate ecosystem that she inhabits. The conditions of her community and perspectives of Muslim and South Asian diaspora lie at the core of her practice. She allows us to be witnesses to her observations on the fractured identity of a religious community. Although Zoya looks at a greater sense of belief and belonging through cultural practices she also challenges the social knowledge of religion and the nation state. Her artistic practice examines how this knowledge influences emergence, transformations and social identities.
Familiar objects, people and places evoke feelings of care and comfort while unfamiliar places elicit fear of strangers and strangeness. In the exhibition, these moments materialise as images within images that uncover multilayered relationships.
