The idea of sanctuary is slippery, broad and ambiguous. It can be a fraught concept, especially in so-called ‘Australia’, which is built on stolen land and is a place that provides safety to only a privileged few. bell hooks writes about the life of the mind as a ‘refuge, a sanctuary where I could experience a sense of agency and thereby construct my own subject identity. Sanctuary can be found in others, like in this gorgeous video of tired cygnets nestling in the curve of their mother’s back. The sanctuary found in moments of domesticity, like in Alison Whittaker’s poem hey babe how’s you’re day. Sanctuaries used to be places of worship—what is sacred or divine to you?
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This series, co-presented with MAV’s Ahead of the Curve commissions, features work by Eric Jiang, Mohamed Chamas, Munira Tabassum Ahmed, Anuraag, Tanya Wong, and Xen Nhà, with design by Anny Luo.
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We would like to acknowledge that Sab D’Souza was also commissioned for the ‘SANCTUARY’ series, and to recognise the loss of this vibrant, intelligent, funny and deeply caring artist. A note from Panda Wong:
I was originally drawn to commission Sab because of their piece in RUNWAY Journal, ‘what if we… held hands in the margins of a Google Doc’. In short, this piece was a film showing a piece being edited—but it was also about the way critique and feedback are also forms of love and care—and how intimate this kind of exchange can be.
Sab’s loss was and is felt deeply in community and in the spaces they shared their work. Sab was an online friend; digital intimacies was key to their practice, but it also felt part of the way they navigated the world. Something that has really stayed with me is how they always finished their emails—‘With care & solidarity’.
