Dana Qaddah

Manifestations of a Voyage

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22 October - 3 December 2022 

 

Unit 17 is pleased to present Manifestations of a Voyage, a solo exhibition of never before seen work by Dana Qaddah. The exhibition includes four significant sculptures & a new artist book, launching during the opening reception on Saturday 22 October from 6 - 8pm. In the gallery, a text by Etel Adnan titled The Manifestations of the Voyage will be left out for visitors; a key text for the development of this exhibition. 

 

A scrolling glass mural sits within three wooden supports that intersect the east side of the gallery, building a kind of wall that is visible from all sides, while three freestanding sculptures with greater textile influence move throughout other areas of the space, bringing together techniques of assemblage using various shells, fabric, leaves & other objects. These latter works, Headdress(es) (all 2022), are made in reference to the structure of Palestinian dowries and other traditional wear, speaking to particular movements, figures, embodiments of the sea & agriculture found in geographical areas significant to Qaddah’s lineages. Drawing formal reference to Etel Adnan’s Leporello pieces, the former work, Salutations to Etel / Manifestations of a voyage (2022), has been worked, reworked, layered, scratched, sprayed, drawn on, stenciled over; repeated with units of mark making over and over again using paint, marker, paper, plastic packaging, photography, among other materials. The images that begin to appear employ both graphic & narrativized elements, shifting between moments of linearity & multiplicities of variencies. 

 

Qaddah’s approach to making points to the nature of the artist’s sentiments towards materials while traversing space & the world. Their personal archives of found & fabricated materials are recomposed to tell stories, more specifically, the stories of abstracted lineage from the generationally displaced. Through this exhibition, Qaddah presents an expansive project that offers insights into both historical & contemporary socioeconomic dimensions of the Eastern Mediterranean coasts, a voice that has had fragmented representation in Vancouver’s arts community. 

 

Sharing its name with the exhibition, Qaddah’s first art book is a sealed artwork of 22 pages printed in black & white with a brown & grey cover. The book is a printed series of intimate visual poems by the artist which meditate on movement through & against time & space in the Eastern Mediterranean, reflecting on what is gained through loss. This work shares notable material relations with past works by Qaddah, some presented at Unit 17 in the group exhibition The Neighbour’s Plate with Derya Akay & Amna Elnour in 2020. Works such as the artist’s Itinerant Sentiments series; sixteen of which have recently been placed in the collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery & the Burnaby Art Gallery. 

 

Dana Qaddah (b. Beirut, Lebanon) is an interdisciplinary artist and organizer whose practice is contextualized by themes of building from, and through, colonial legacies, environmental and economic deterioration, and abstraction from one’s own sense of self and place.

 

This project was generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

 

Thank you to my family, friends & peers, without whom this exhibition would not be possible. Special thank you to Tobin, Lauren, Sof, Cora, Erica, Taj, Nova, Karmella, Effy, Yeonoo, Derya, Paula, Christian, Asia, Hazel, Asmaa, Joyce, Dad, Agnes, Althea & Karice for all the physical & emotional support.