Photograph
Maker & role
Ms Anne Zahalka, Artist
Production date
2002
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Object detail
Title
Zaheda Ghani, Parramatta Park, 2002
Production place
Collection
Measurements
H: 66 x W: 166cm (H: 660 x W: 1660mm)
Subject Place
Credit line
Purchase, 2002
Museum of Sydney Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Museum of Sydney Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Description
Photograph taken by Anne Zahalka of Zaheda Ghani in Parramatta Park, 2002. Zaheda was eight years old when her family settled in Australia. The family’s personal possessions were left in Afghanistan and she has missed them, particularly family photographs. Three years ago, her mother visited Afghanistan and returned with photographs and gifts of jewellery and clothes from her grandmother, which Zaheda wears in the photograph. Zaheda recalls, ‘Afghanistan was a dreamland to me; it existed in another world. When mu mother returned with clothes and jewellery from my grandmother, I realised that she had touched them. It was like receiving a piece of Afghanistan, right in my hand’.
The photograph is part of a series of 17 colour images titled, 'Welcome to Sydney' by Anne Zahalka, commissioned initially by Sydney Airport Corporation. The work consists of a series of panoramic images of immigrants in various Sydney locations, each person holding an object from their homeland that is personally or culturally important and connects them with their place of origin.
The convention of advertising, cinema and tourist imagery are employed in the series as the artist plays with the usual ways these media portray Sydney landscapes and people. All the portraits are taken in public places, some backdrops being familiar sites such as Bondi, Sydney Harbour and the city metropolis, others lesser known urban landscapes in suburbs such as Cabramatta and Bankstown, representing the demographic trends of migrant settlement.
The series explores both displacement and belonging in the migrant experience. Some of the subjects seem culturally and geographically dislocated, while others seem to have been seamlessly transported into the new landscape. The artist makes visual plays and associations between each person and the new landscape they find themselves in.
The photograph is part of a series of 17 colour images titled, 'Welcome to Sydney' by Anne Zahalka, commissioned initially by Sydney Airport Corporation. The work consists of a series of panoramic images of immigrants in various Sydney locations, each person holding an object from their homeland that is personally or culturally important and connects them with their place of origin.
The convention of advertising, cinema and tourist imagery are employed in the series as the artist plays with the usual ways these media portray Sydney landscapes and people. All the portraits are taken in public places, some backdrops being familiar sites such as Bondi, Sydney Harbour and the city metropolis, others lesser known urban landscapes in suburbs such as Cabramatta and Bankstown, representing the demographic trends of migrant settlement.
The series explores both displacement and belonging in the migrant experience. Some of the subjects seem culturally and geographically dislocated, while others seem to have been seamlessly transported into the new landscape. The artist makes visual plays and associations between each person and the new landscape they find themselves in.
Accession number
MOS2003/1-5
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