How might it appear to live without hope? Akil Ahamat is grasping for answers.
Curated by Sebastian-Henry Jones, Extinguishing Hope is Ahamat’s exhibition presented at UTS Gallery. The multi-screen installation is mirrored on either side of the panelled projection screen, where the artist engages at side profile in conversation with a snail. A leafy enclosure surrounds them, and they speak haloed by the light of a fire.
These video components are pieced together in the artist’s studio and rendered from a gaming engine. The nature of the screens causes one to question the relation of the double binds – is there a binary to observe when we look to survival and destruction?
Memory is extremely vital to Ahamat’s approach, as is the ancient Javanese literati Sunan Kalijaga, who produced the poem ‘Kidung Rumeksa ing Wengi’ (Song Guarding in the Night). The prayer chronicles the threats presented in the earthly and spiritual realm, spanning life stories across Java to Sri Lanka over the exile of the Malay peoples. Ahamat’s work ripples as one voice that speaks against the eminence of disaster.Â
The figure of the humble snail has been a current of constant fascination for the artist since 2019. In Ahamat’s previous body of work, the snail was utilised to ask, “What do we do when we cannot trust what we can see?” This emerged quickly as a kinesthetic reproduction, animating non-human creatures in order to have a human dialogue.
As presented, the intimate relationship of co-existence we see puts forward the reality of our own world. Austerity develops from the ongoing man-made horrors – and the presentation of the work does well to reflect this, shrouding the site in darkness.
How does Extinguishing Hope try to forge beyond darkness?
Though the creation site of the work is a gaming engine, the snail’s voice is rendered from a konjac sponge. The artist also draws on the guided squelchiness of ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) and ideas of intimacy to piece the audio and visual elements together.
Nothing in the exhibition is meant to be in sync. In fact, every frame shifts in and out of order as we watch it. There are moments where the overlap of sound is confounding, detracting from the dialogue that plays across the screens. It is hard to pin a moment of resolution from the piece, but perhaps it is timed to Ahamat’s vision of senseless dread. Hope, after all, can be inarticulable.
The accompanying works on the walls are ‘shrinkies’ – figurines that can be chucked in the oven and incrementally lessened in size as they bloom in heat. Ahamat explains his fascination with the object as in line with his quest for stories. In Javanese manuscripts, a motif of two birds denotes a change of metre and voice for the reciter. In the artist’s tinily rendered work, this indicates a textual denouement or shift, also breaking up the video installation’s main narrative.Â
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Ahamat’s work is informed by Islamic theory and ancestral knowledge. It also pulses with reference to our current conditions in the outside world. These meditations of hope are anachronistic in the face of bioterrorism. In light of the current ecosystem of art and legislation in Australia, Ahamat sets a pertinent reminder that there are others – species, theories, languages – to carry the flame forward.
Akil Ahamat: Extinguishing Hope will be exhibited at UTS Gallery until 19 May 2025.
