Portraits of Women: Amani Haydar

Exhibition Details

Date: 29 August to 8 November 2024

The Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture (IAC) at Western Sydney University proudly presents this uniquely empowering exhibition titled Portraits of Women, featuring the Western Sydney-based artist Amani Haydar who is also an award-winning writer, advocate for women’s health and safety and a former lawyer. The exhibition inspires resilience, strength, truthfulness and beauty.

Amani was born in Australia to Lebanese migrant parents. Her self-portrait Insert Headline Here, a finalist in the 2018 Archibald Prize, was created after she lost her mother in a brutal act of domestic violence perpetrated by her father, as a way to reclaim the control of her family story from the headlines and “to challenge assumptions that women victims of crime are helpless, weak or subservient”. In 2021 Amani published a brilliant and courageous truth-telling memoir The Mother Wound which has touched countless people and received multiple awards, including the Victoria Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. Amani uses visual art and writing to explore the personal, political, social and cultural dimensions of trauma, gender violence, loss and identity. Amani’s artworks have a distinctive style and her exquisite portraits of women featured prominently in this exhibition are a central part of her artistic practice, telling stories of women within a feminist, anti-oppressive ethos. Her use of vibrant colours evokes hope and courage.

In 2017 Western Sydney University honoured Amani’s late mother, Salwa Haydar, who didn’t get to finish her undergraduate studies at the University, with a posthumous Bachelor of Community Welfare. Amani and her younger sisters, Nour and Ola, proudly received the award on behalf of their mother. Professor Brian Stout, Pro Vice-Chancellor of Western Sydney University who was responsible for initiating the award, will open the exhibition. Nour Haydar, an outstanding reporter at ABC for seven years and now with The Guardian, will be the guest speaker. You are warmly invited to join us at the opening of this captivating exhibition.

About the Artist

Amani Haydar is an award-winning author, visual artist, advocate for women’s health and safety and a former lawyer, based in Western Sydney on Dharug land. In 2018 Amani’s self-portrait titled Insert Headline Here was a finalist in the Archibald Prize. As an active visual artist and former Archibald Prize finalist, Amani collaborates with organisations like Settlement Services International (SSI) and the Older Women’s Network to deliver visual arts and storytelling workshops for people from migrant communities. Her illustrations have been featured in publications such as Admissions: Voices within Mental Health, The Very Best Doughnut by Randa Abdel-Fattah, Safar by Sarah Malik and The Racial Politics of Australian Multiculturalism by Ghassan Hage.

Amani’s ground-breaking feminist memoir The Mother Wound (Pan Macmillan, 2021) explores the effects of domestic abuse and state-sanctioned violence on women and has received several awards including the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction and the 2022 Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year, and it was also long-listed for The Walkley Book Award in 2021. The Mother Wound has recently been translated into Arabic allowing Arabic readers worldwide to engage with the Arab-Australian experience. Amani’s writing has also been featured in collections such as Racism, Arab Australian Other, Sweatshop Women Volume Two, and anthology After Australia.

Amani was the recipient of the 2021 UTS Faculty of Law Alumni Award and was named Local Woman of the Year for Bankstown at the 2020 NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year Awards in recognition of her advocacy against domestic violence. Drawing on her lived experiences and legal background, Amani has served on the boards of Bankstown Women’s Health Centre and the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights.

Artist Statement

This exhibition has been developed on Dharug Land, on the lands of the Burramattagal and Bidjigal people, land which has been home to art and storytelling for millennia. I pay my respects to elders past and present and acknowledge my status as a settler on these unceded lands and the responsibilities that come with that. Always was, always will be.

The artworks in this exhibition consist of a collection of self-portraits painted over the past few years, a collection of various works engaged with themes of nature and spirituality, and a collection of more recent works reflecting my current creative practice. Portraits of women feature in each of these collections and are a central part of my practice as an artist who works within a feminist, anti-oppressive ethos. I am interested in exploring and presenting the ways women engage with one another and how their inner worlds are shaped by familial, social and political factors.

Self-portraiture is an important and regular part of my creative practice. I use it as an opportunity to ‘check in’ with myself, evaluate my work, reflect on what I've been doing and where I want to go next. The first self-portrait, Insert Headline Here (2018), a finalist in the 2018 Archibald Prize, was created after the most devastating trauma and loss in my life. When my mum was murdered in her home by my abusive father on 30 March 2015, some media outlets circulated a Fairfax photo taken in 2006 while my mum was grieving the death of her own mother, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike while fleeing the southern villages of Lebanon. I incorporated the photo, which I printed straight off the internet, as a way of reclaiming my story from the headlines. By painting a self-portrait, I was able to reinstate its personal significance to me. I also saw it as an opportunity to challenge assumptions that women victims of crime are helpless, weak or subservient. I have used vibrant colour to convey a sense of hope, while the repetition of patterns echoes the repetition of trauma in my life, but also draws on the type of art found in mosques, which for me symbolises faith, survival and regrowth.

My subsequent self-portraits demonstrate the ways in which I have engaged in processes of healing, recovery and truth-telling. A Year of Recovery (2019) shows the journey of recovery through creativity and self-care, while Burnout Culture (2019) looks at the self-immolative nature of activism and political protest. Self-portrait with Memories (2021) reflects the writing process and the memories I revisited as I wrote my memoir, The Mother Wound. The text includes random words and phrases from my book, referencing the way the body experiences and stores stress and conflict. The background represents an ongoing sense of grief about my homeland, which intensified through the writing process.  I've learned that writing a memoir is like self-portraiture in the way it demands that the author look closely at herself and interrogate inconsistent and unresolved experiences.

After writing my book I was able to participate in therapeutic experiences which led to a period of spiritual growth and healing. That, in turn, leads me to think about how the human mind makes sense of reality through the metaphorical and surreal and the creation of a collection of works engaged with themes of nature and spirituality. These works reference dreams and meditative experiences as well as remembered and/or imagined places. Themes of homeland persist even in these dreamscapes and even when I did not consciously set out to depict them. For instance, The Garden (2022) draws on fond memories of a pine tree in my grandparent’s garden which sits in the shade of a large hill known as Kheil, a distinctive feature of my village of origin.

Late last year Israeli settlers and politicians held a conference advocating for the occupation and settlement of the southern parts of Lebanon. Hundreds of Lebanese people have lost their lives due to the regional consequences of the genocide in Gaza. Thousands more have suffered from past Israeli occupation and the people of southern Lebanon have a long history of resisting this violence. Over 100,000 Lebanese people have been internally displaced from their villages since October 2023, including my own relatives, and the Australian government has recently signalled an intention to criminalise Australians who choose to travel to the southern parts of Lebanon. The implication of this is that it dehumanises all people who live there and frames our presence on our ancestral lands as suspicious.

I feel a sense of disease, grief and anxiety about how this furthers the distance between me and my homeland. I find myself yearning for something that does not exist in the form I imagine it. I find myself internally, spiritually, physically displaced. For those of us who are affected or moved by the current genocide, there is a sense of being forced to sit still through a crisis, the sense of being tied to the tracks, of moving like glue through time, of not knowing where to place the next step.

Each of my self-portraits attaches itself to new personal and political meanings in this context and my recent works are acts of creative resistance against imperialist narratives. We Swear by the Olives (2024) and We Shall Inherit the Soil (2024) are both inspired by old photographs of my mother and grandmother. They are not intended to be strict depictions of either, but rather an attempt at capturing the relationship between these women and their land. In their expressions and stances, they reaffirm the certainty of their sense of belonging, a certainty which frustrates colonisers, a certainty that cannot be challenged by outsiders.

It is well established in literature on trauma that repeated exposure to traumatic events hinders recovery. We are unable to heal ourselves in a society that is chronically unwell and our repeated exposure to trauma – directly or vicariously – has cumulative detrimental effects on our wellbeing. Art has long been a mode of processing and healing for me, but the climate I live in demonises my people, and exposes us to grotesque, unbridled violence. This reality cannot be watered down or manipulated by a paintbrush. I do not believe it is possible to adequately respond to the immense trauma of these events while they are still unfolding, but I do believe that it is a privilege and a responsibility to be able to make art during this time. I am aware that my works do not have the power it takes to relieve us of suffering. I do hope, however, that they provide a safe landing pad for grief, rage, nostalgia, or whatever else is being felt by those of us who are affected – materially and emotionally –  and the true allies who walk alongside us.

Amani Haydar List of Collectible Works

Guest Speakers’ Biographies

Professor Brian Stout is Pro Vice-Chancellor, Learning and Teaching, at Western Sydney University. He has a long history of research, teaching and practice in youth justice, probation and social work in Australia, Europe and South Africa. His most recent book is Community Justice in Australia (Routledge, 2nd ed., 2023) and he has carried out research in Australia into interventions with children and young people facilitated by Juvenile Justice, FACS and other agencies. Professor Stout has been involved in developing and delivering training and education for criminal justice professionals in the UK and South Africa and participated in many European criminal justice social work projects. His previous research has included child justice diversion in South Africa and sex offender public disclosure schemes in the UK. Professor Stout is an experienced academic leader, previously holding the roles of Dean and Deputy Dean, School of Social Sciences, and Campus Provost, Liverpool. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Nour Haydar is the host of Guardian Australia's flagship daily news podcast Full Story. Before joining the Guardian, Nour was a federal political reporter with ABC News in the Canberra Press Gallery for almost five years. During her time at the ABC, Nour also filled in as Europe Correspondent in London, and as host on ABC News Breakfast.
Tu Le Tu Le is a community worker, organiser and lawyer who advocates for social justice and diversity. She works in the community legal sector providing free legal assistance to people who experience social and economic disadvantage, including victim-survivors of domestic and family violence. Tu sits on the board of Addison Road Community Organisation and is the Chair of Asian Women at Work. In 2022, Tu won the 40 Under 40 most influential Asian-Australian award and was the NSW Award recipient of the Australian Awards for Excellence in Women’s Leadership in 2023.

Photo Gallery