The artwork has been designed in collaboration with the local school children, who were asked to create a symbolic representation of the objects which have travelled along their metaphoric paths to places and cultures, real and imagined.
Artist Shireen Taweel reflects on their artwork Show and Tell!
How did you come up with the idea for your artwork?
The site is widely use by pedestrians and the local school’s community, I couldn’t help but respond the metaphor of a path and its symbolism for younger audiences as a connection to a greater sense of home.
How does it fit into your wider practice?
Much of my work as an artist is oriented around building connections and cultural exchanges. Coming from a family of Lebanese migrants who settled in Western Sydney, I related to the artwork’s location and its proximity to a local school which its community is proudly multicultural. This project centred around the process of drawing and workshops with young participants from Auburn North Public School. My projects usually investigate local sites and often involve drawing as an important process to inform the sculptural work and larger installations. The details within each sculpture for Show and Tell are a collective accumulation of many worlds fluidly connected and in conversation with one another.
What did you enjoy about this project?
What I enjoyed most within this project was the exchange of drawing and storytelling initiated from the objects each student shared in the workshop. The student’s drawings from their objects often led back to a feeling of home across the sense of both the local and global.
What drew you to applying for this opportunity?
I was drawn to this project as an opportunity to have a public artwork that included our younger community’s voices and creativity. I see this site as a wonderful activation for locals and those who are driving by to witness a representation of the complexities of children’s world. My intention for this project included a playful assemblage of the sculptures and activation on the footpath along Parramatta Road as an opportunity for the public to keep looking and seeing the work in many ways each time they are to pass by.
Any acknowledgements you’d like us to include?
I’d like to sincerely thank Kristina Tito from Cumberland City Council, the students and teachers at North Auburn Public School, TILT Industry and Design, and Barry MacGregor from Currie and Brown.
Show and Tell creative workshop with Auburn North Public School Kindergarten students.
Show and Tell creative workshop with Auburn North Public School Kindergarten students.
Show and Tell creative workshop with Auburn North Public School Kindergarten students.
Show and Tell creative workshop with Auburn North Public School Kindergarten students.
Shireen Taweel
Shireen’s practice reflects the many cultural landscapes she inhabits as a Lebanese Australian where she employs a progressive application of copper artisan techniques to inform the construction of future representations of the sacred. Through the progressive use of heritage artisan techniques, Shireen’s most recent work rests speculative astral architecture upon a diverse foundation of past celestial technologies.
Shireen Taweel - Show and Tell
Steel 2023