Artist Statements

From East To East

From East To East explores the borders created between people, nature, and things around us. From Japan, in so-called the Far East, Egypt lies to the west. Egyptians themselves refer to Egypt as “Oriental.” Both are placed under “East,” even though their apparent differences seem obvious. We rely on what we see to recognize difference. Through naming, we categorize; through categorization, we learn to perceive differences, include or exclude. Same things have different names. Same names are shared by different things.

“Only Water Here” in which water is placed in three American glasses, illustrates the fact that The Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific Ocean are the same body of water, given different names. Without names or instruments, they are inseparable. Two Portraits of Outsiders, photographed in Camp Caesar and Japan, share the same sea level. In the film Inside or Outside, a woman’s position shifts from inside to outside the Pacific Ocean. Together with Where Does the Sea End?, a photograph of the tide, these works question a clear line between one thing and another in our minds. Sky and Water, photographed in Fayoum, and Tides explore the limits of vision.

Alexandria, known for its cosmopolitanism shaped by centuries of encounters between different peoples and cultures, presents us to reconsider divisions. Borders are fragile, vague, and transient.

World With No More War

The project centralises a contemplation on peace initiated by artist and former journalist publista (Rui Yasue). It draws on a collection of interviews conducted in Egypt and Australia after 7 October 2023, each asking two questions: 'What would the world be like with no more war?' and 'What is the greatest obstacle to achieving it?' The order of questions is crucial, inviting imagination before moving to the complexities of 'how,' thereby shifting the frame of thought.

Certain words in interviews conducted in Egypt will be obscured. The subtle intervention references the need to conform to political and religious ideologies. The photograph series ‘Someone Else’ features unidentifiable figures and indistinct settings, evoking the anonymity imposed on interviewees under censorship in Egypt. A monologue-style video, ‘question’, will elaborate on the project and invite audiences to imagine possible futures. Portrait photographs and installations will reference the key responses to the second question - greed, insecurity, capitalism, unequal distribution of resources, and misinterpretations of religion shaped by systemic racism.

Yi contributes an essay on the ideal of freedom and its lived realities. While information censored under the Egyptian regime can be shared openly in Australia, those who fled life-threatening conflict, authoritarian rule, or systemic inequality often remain precarious. Within the subconscious of such communities lingers the possibility of returning home, and with it the risk of reprisal for what has been said. Imprisonment or punishment remains a threat. Essentially, freedom carries different meanings even within one society.

The project entwines perspectives on war, peace, and the layered complexities of freedom. It explicates the lived realities of migrants and refugees, inviting empathy for experiences shaped by displacement. While no simple answers emerge, the work opens a space for radical imagination. Without hope, we go nowhere; by envisioning idealistically, we may at least arrive halfway.

Changing Desire for the Unchanged

Changing Desire for the Unchanged encompasses photos transferred onto paperbark and printed on paper made of tussock grass, igusa (rush grass used for tatami), and loofah.

All paper sheets are handmade from scratch by publista with traditional Japanese washi papermaking technique. The photographs feature objects and concepts whose connotations

and status have shifted: claims of so-called nationalism, the removed James Cook memorial, former institutions next to church, and goods whose economic and social values have changed. They also capture deserts in Egypt that alter week by week, and the moon night by night, though these changes are rendered almost imperceptible by distance.

Permanence is not an actual condition but a projection: we return to the same things in search of constancy, but each return is with a different self and a different set of needs. What is once held as right can later be undone: religion, science, ideology, as beliefs are continually shaped and reshaped by power and time. Nothing is truly, perpetually unchanged.

With this tension, Changing Desire for the Unchanged questions the fixation of imposed meanings, revealing how categories, values, and truths are not stable givens, but temporary constructions cast by perspective and power.

The project embraces materiality specific to place. publista made paper from plants native to where he has lived: Australia, Japan, Egypt. For each sheet of paper, he pounded cooked grass for approximately 20,000 hammer strikes, embedding duration and labour. Some photos are transferred onto paperbark using gel medium. All paperbark was consciously harvested in appropriate condition and size to ensure the ongoing health of the trees.