Kaurna Women’s Art Collective: Sisters of Lartelare. Adelaide Contemporary Experimental. 5 Sep 2024
Two parallel exhibitions at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental explore the issue of cultural identity and its preservation: Justine Youssef’s exhibition Somewhat Eternal and the Kaurna Women’s Art Collective’s exhibition Sisters of Lartelare.
Dharug/Sydney-based artist Youssef is of Lebanese descent and her exhibition presents aspects of her culture practised on First Nations Country away from its origins, while the Kaurna Women’s Art Collective present elements of their traditional culture on Kaurna Country.
Justine Youssef, Somewhat Eternal, 2023, installation view, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental, photo Sam Roberts
Justine Youssef’s installation comprises a three-channel video, five decorative rugs hung from the ceiling and forming a screen, a text printed on the wall concerning plants, and other rugs folded and stacked to provide seating for viewers. For this exhibition, the walls of the gallery are painted a dark pink that, together with the vividly colourful rugs, saturates the space with very warm tones.
The video shows Youssef’s aunt, who lives in Lebanon, performing a traditional Lebanese ritual that is intended to drive the evil eye from someone afflicted by it, and she does this while communicating via phone video with her young relatives in Australia who are afflicted. The ritual is called R’sasa and involves melting lead pellets in a spoon over a hot flame and then cooling the molten lead in water infused with parsley. Traditionally the shape of the resulting mass of lead is interpreted by an interlocutor and the parsley is placed under the afflicted person’s pillow and eaten in the morning. Alarmingly, the lead is often taken from shotgun pellets or from bullets that can be still found in some parts of Lebanon following the Israeli occupation of 1982 to 2000.
Justine Youssef, Somewhat Eternal, 2023, three channel video (film still), 11 minutes, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental, courtesy the artist.
The rugs are scented with plant hydrosols created through a traditional process Youssef inherited matrilineally, and she selected the plants for their symbolic connections. She notes that the importing of Lebanese cedars into Australia and Australian eucalypts into Lebanon represents a form of colonisation. The rugs are also embroidered with texts, and some are adorned with metal pendants inscribed with text or left blank.
Youssef’s family migrated to Australia to escape the Lebanese civil war (1975 – 1990), and her installation embodies cultural traditions that are important in sustaining community connection and identity, adapted to acknowledge the relocation of her family on unceded Country. She is acutely sensitive to the impact of colonisation and the issues arising from immigration and the practising of an immigrant culture in Australia.
Justine Youssef, Somewhat Eternal, 2023, detail, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental, photo Sam Roberts
Youssef’s exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated booklet, Somewhat Eternal – Justine Youssef, containing an extended essay entitled Learning from the Problem in which the exhibition curators, Stella Rosa McDonald, Tulleah Pearce and Patrice Sharkey, detail Youssef’s extensive art practice and her broader concerns. The book also contains contributions by Chi Tran, Mikaela Saunders and Latoya Aroha Rule who each respond to the issues raised by Youssef from their own perspectives. Traditional cultural practice is seen as a form of resistance to colonisation and the resulting dilution or dissolution of identity. This absorbing booklet is an essential companion to the exhibition.
Coincidentally, hostilities in southern Lebanon have recently recurred, prompting reflection on the forced migration that results from the many conflicts besetting the world and the impact on the affected communities.
Sisters of Lartelare, 2024, installation view, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental, photo Sam Roberts
The Sisters of Lartelare exhibition forms an element of an ongoing project by the Kaurna Women’s Art Collective to document the native plant life of their district and its medicinal properties and to preserve and pass on their cultural traditions. The exhibition is named after Kaurna woman Lartelare (Rebecca Spender), born in Glanville in 1851. The Collective’s leader, Bonny Brodie, is a descendant of Lartelare, and Lartelare Reserve is a significant site for the Yartapuulti-Port Adelaide Aboriginal community, Kaurna people and the wider community.
The Sisters of Lartelare exhibition comprises specimens of native plants, scents made from plants, textile works and a documentary video. The botanical descriptions of the plant specimens and their uses are presented, the scents can be sampled by viewers, and there are artworks printed on fabric telling stories of the community.
Sisters of Lartelare, 2024, installation detail, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental, photo Sam Roberts
The Sisters of Lartelare exhibition parallels Youssef’s both in its form of presentation and in its intention to retrieve and sustain cultural traditions. By exhibiting aspects of Kaurna culture at this location, the Kaurna Women’s Art Collective implicitly claims its history of custodianship and it welcomes Youssef’s community.
In bringing these two exhibitions and their communities together, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental is encouraging cultural retrieval, preservation and transmission and supporting positive interaction between the two communities. The colocation of the two exhibitions exemplifies the juxtaposition of the many Indigenous and imported cultural traditions to be found in Australia. These compelling exhibitions combine to create a deeply involving and thought-provoking experience that prompts viewers to reflect on their own values and beliefs, how their lives are shaped by their cultural origins and practices and how they interact with people of other traditions.
Chris Reid
When: 31 Aug to 19 Oct
Where: Adelaide Contemporary Experimental
More info: ace.gallery
Justine Youssef, Somewhat Eternal, 2023,
three channel video (film still), 11 minutes,
Adelaide Contemporary Experimental,
courtesy the artist.
