Leena Nammari

Leena Nammari Someone I once Knew

Leena Nammari Someone I once Knew (Detail)

Working predominantly with photography and printmaking Leena Nammari pushes the boundaries of both those processes, a push and pull, creating a tension that is palpable. Her work has always been informed by process, printmaking, ceramics, textiles, photography and scultpture, but principally, it has always been about the image, the story behind the image and how it can inform and transport thoughts gently.

As an artist, a Palestinian living in the diaspora, a woman of colour, these boundaries are there to work with and push against. Her work reflects the borders set against her as a Palestinian, whether they are political, racial, geographical or intellectual. She subtly prods the viewer into uncomfortable places, where they will reflect on ideologies that will compel them to relearn and readdress what they have known and what they had been told. 

Her PhD research explores the role Haneen plays in cultural collective consciousness, its nostalgia and mythmaking, where tensions of longing/belonging function as catalysts in artistic and cultural dialogue for displaced communities. 

Using predominantly photographic and printmaking techniques, she creates artworks exploring lived, remembered, and mythologised experiences as visual responses to contemporary Palestinian literature, reflecting the search for home and longing. We all work within and beyond borders, borders of race, ethnicity, culture, language, and comfort. The role of an artist is to push for change, to enlighten, and to highlight those borders we impose on ourselves and live within.

The Absence of Presence

An individual and Collaborative exhibition with Louise Ritchie PPSSA