DESYPHER Gallery invites you to submit an artwork for a ‘Time Piece Wall’ which would be installed permanently at the ICV Melbourne main Prayer Hall. The building is located on 66 Jeffcott Street, Melbourne 3003 Victoria, Australia.

This is an exciting competition for the artist and designer in you to explore the relationship and interaction between ‘art and architecture’. Architecture is a repository for art, where art is expressed in architecture. The entry should express how art and architecture affect and are affected by each other and adds to the current global debate between the ‘container’ and the ‘contents’.

Please go to our Gallery session for details.

The competition was juried by Michael Graves, FAIA, Architect, James Christen Steward, PhD., Director, Princeton Art Museum and Sassona Norton, Sculptor.

The execution of the ’sculpture wall’ was an adaptation by Desypher from an artwork by Peter Gould, who won a closed competition for the wall in 2009.

The competition was held to celebrate the inauguration of the new art centre in New Jersey, with its noble aim to become “global stage for all art forms” and to enrich “dialogue between viewers and art at large”.  You may view the images in our project section. The exhibition will be held beginning September 2010.

The main objective is to explore the relationship and interaction between ‘art and architecture’. Architecture is a repository for art, where art is expressed in architecture. The entry should express how art and architecture affect and are affected by each other, complementing to the current global debate between the ‘container’ and the ‘contents’.

For further information, the Competition Brief can be downloaded from this link: Art in Architecture Competition Desypher ICV 2010

In February 2010, we came across a competition for Holocaust Memorial on a beach front of Atlantic City Boardwalk. The holocaust referred to in the context of the competition is targeted specifically towards the Nuremberg related history. We are magnanimous in our response to the holocaustic claims, and compare this to other genocides that occurred throughout history.

We consulted several knowledgeable friends about our intention to participate. Now, many would be surprised to learn that Desypher eventually submitted an entry.

The intention was to throw a number of challenges up in the mindsets of those of Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds. Our contention is to firstly challenge the notion of Holocaust as an exclusive event that by definition lessens recognition of all other genocides committed against a host of peoples, and secondly to demonstrate the cycle in which the victim can easily finds him or herself to be the innocent bystander, the perpetrator or the ethicist.

The design represents an overlaying of two ongoing processes;

The first is an examination of genocide – past, present and future; and the basic required responses to any genocide – acknowledgement, repentance and intervention.

The second is the creation of a stage-set made up of spatial installations that invite those that frequent the boardwalk to experience various roles;

The “Innocent Bystander” sees and hears from a distance but may elect to walk on.

The Naiveté unsuspectingly wanders into the path that is the victim – the endpoint obscured by each turn until the path converges as a “plank” – and he or she is left standing alone under the domineering gaze of the perpetrators

The Egotist seduced by the glitz and cliché of the propaganda wall. Embarks upon a more deliberate path that widens as support is collected, peripheral view blinkered, fortified by heartless  post mobs until too confronted by victim’s vulnerability at arm’s reach

The Ethicist driven by higher consciousness rises the stair and sees all in perspective; enabling reflection and resolution  for change and intervention, a trail of moist footsteps from whence he came evaporating

We enter this competition to demonstrate how history can be interpreted and dis- or misinterpreted. Lessons from history are multidimensional. Understanding the diverse viewpoints or efforts towards understanding the diversity requires mercy and empathy at all levels, something that contemporary polities had not been able to embrace. By participating, we increase our efforts to gain knowledge and understanding, from all sides possible.

Verily, our entry drew upon consequences of genocides throughout history of mankind, and the message of peace and mercy, in moving forward. Perhaps understandably, it did not make it to the final selection. We are a little disappointed, but not surprised.

Images for the competition is available on our Project page. We welcome your feedback on this discussion.

It seems that parking is an extremely critical issue with most mosques. I recalled an event when a council member took videos of parking infringement in the nearby suburb during Friday prayer times in order to reject a planning application for a new mosque. This obviously disadvantaged the community who had made great efforts to get to the planning stage of such noble project. In most cases, such examples would risk potential advancement or improvement plans being developed for the local communities.

IFEES in the UK attempt to provide guidelines for green mosque that include these ethical consideration. When it comes to parking, we have to look at the larger issue of transport, as they had outlined;

• Promoting public transport: pin up a large bus map
• Facilitating car-sharing: mark routes people take using wool and pins on map and a list of who uses which. Organize pick-up points.
• [Mini]bus to collect school children and take them home – end the school run!
• Subsidised local and accessible parking.
• Staggering mosque prayer times to avoid rush hour traffic.
• Providing refreshments between Zuhr, the midday prayers, and Asr, the afternoon prayers – in winter.
• Lifestyle seminars and walk to the Mosque days, where walking is actively encouraged.
• Working with local authorities on traffic calming measures.
• Instigating a one-way traffic flow system near mosque.

These suggestions should be tailored to the neighbourhood, but they provide some ideas for new or existing mosques to consider. For Muslim Green Guide UK, click here.

Rather than paying car parking ticket, they might as well park properly and donate similar amounts to the mosque maintenance budget!

The session was attended by Principals and Administrators of ABIM supported schools and colleges in the region.

Please direct all enquiries to crookedrib.art@gmail.com

The ROOTS exhibition was opened on Friday 21 May.  Crooked Rib Art is no stranger in the art scene of Melbourne.  It is an arts collective started by young Muslim female artists who not only aim to challenge perceptions of themselves but also work to question perceptions of current social issues through the public art domain.

Art, in its diverse mediums, is a platform that creates opportunities for crooked rib art to work with/for the wider community and consequently elicit social change through education.

If you have any ideas and proposal towards this cause please feel free to contact us on info@desypher.com.au or friendsofcameleers@gmail.com

Considering the true essence of Islamic art or architecture can never involve simply defining any one particular period or style and although the arts of ‘Islam’ is seemingly instantaneously recognisable the scope and depth of this term is yet to be fully understood. Peter’s ability to capture with simplicity the intricacy of these beautiful and complicated works of art which have for the most part saturated the skylines wherever Muslims have resided, shares with us the soulful and deliberate expression of dhikr (Remembrance and praising of God) that marks the work of the Muslim artisan. The manifestation of this dhikr through such contemporary mediums as photography and graphic design is a natural consequence of our immediate environment and our earnest attempt as living creatures to manifest our spiritual place in the here and now.

Peter’s photography is as much about the spiritual as it is about the visual, offering no questions or answers but rather affording the viewer to simply being in that moment and that moment at first glance seems to curiously exist without time or consequence. This is the true beauty of Peter’s work where there is a present quietness about it that shares the essence of purpose of the art and architecture of the past through contemporary mediums, one of the quintessential markers of the true Muslim artist. (Nur Skhembi, Officer for the Arts, ICV)