False Calm, Distant Salam

As a part of "Sketchbook Exhibition" at Unassinged Gallery, FCDS began with a question I carried after moving from Egypt to Australia in 2024. I had assumed colonialism belonged to history, yet I found many First Nations communities still facing inequalities familiar to postcolonial Egypt. Why had so little changed?



This work combines a research sketchbook with a photograph of a calm water surface, layered with fragments of Australian paperbark. Beneath its quiet appearance, the bark reveals a more complex reality.