Conversations with the Assembly #5: Abdul Halik Azeez and Alana Hunt

Join Abdul Halik Azeez and Alana Hunt in discussion for the fifth episode of our second series of Conversations with the Assembly.

Abdul Halik Azeez’s work examines technologies of power as mediated through contemporary culture, narratives of progress, lived experiences and new media processes. His multidisciplinary practice predominantly draws from post-war transformations impacting Sri Lanka such as gentrification, economic crises, tourism, and renewed ultranationalist politics. Collaboration plays a key role in Azeez’s work. In 2019, he co-founded The Packet, a collective of emerging artists from Sri Lanka which has worked extensively with publications and digital interventions including artist books, browser based art and site specific installations.

Alana Hunt coordinates Regional Assembly. She also makes art and writes, finding ways for this material to move affectively through the public sphere and the social space between people. She has worked with journalists, filmmakers, human rights defenders and lawyers on works that unfold over many years, with gradual yet accumulating resonance. The iterative memorial Cups of nun chai (2010-20) was serialised in 86 editions of Kashmir Reader (2016–17). In late 2023, Hunt completed Surveilling a Crime Scene (2023) a film that examines the materialisation of non-indigenous life on Miriwoong Country in the town of Kununurra and its surrounds. Hunt has exhibited nationally and internationally and is the recipient of a number of awards, most recently the 2023 STILL: National Still Life Award judged by Max Delany at Yarrila Arts and Museum, Coffs Harbour. 

Halik: One other thing that struck me in one of the conversations that I was reading was how you said you were less confident when it comes to exhibition making and presenting your work in exhibitions. And that’s something I can also strongly relate to. Sometimes you begin to localise your work in the end product, the object that comes out of it. Whether it’s the video, or the photographs that are made, or the writing that’s done. You start to think it’s perhaps the presenting of these objects and you obsess about the perfect way to present it given the constrained space or resources.

Conversations with the Assembly (Series 2) is a podcast that delves deep with practitioners from Regional Assembly—an online artist studio connecting creative practitioners living and working in regional and remote locations in Asia, the Pacific and First Nations unceded territories across Australia. Each episode will foreground distinct voices and amplify, challenge and entwine the many threads of discourse and dialogue that unfold during Regional Assembly. 

To read more about the Regional Assembly click here: https://regionalarts.com.au/programs/regionalassembly

To read more about Regional Arts Australia click here: https://regionalarts.com.au/about/about-regional-arts-australia

The Regional Assembly is a Regional Arts Australia program delivered through the Regional Arts Fund. The Regional Arts Fund supports cultural development in regional, remote and rural communities in Australia. The program is managed by Regional Arts Australia on behalf of the Australian Government.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Regional Arts Australia.