Rushdi Anwar, Irhal (Expel), Hope and the Sorrow of Displacement (2013–ongoing). Burnt wooden chairs, black oxide pigment, charcoal, ash. Dimensions variable. Exhibition view: The National 2019: New Australian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (29 March–21 July 2019). © Rushdi Anwar.
'Scenes are disrupted and people are distorted; trapped in fractured narratives reflecting on the speed with which information is generated, regurgitated, and spat out again. Just beyond this is Rushdi Anwar's monumental sculpture Irhal (Expel), Hope and the Sorrow of Displacement (2013–ongoing) composed of blackened wooden chairs, stacked perilously on top of each other atop a carpet of charcoal remains. As a Kurdish refugee, Anwar reflects on his own individual experience of war and displacement, a kind of meditation on memory and collective grief.'
