Shifting Ground
A journey through the work of Anwar Jalal Shemza
1.30-4pm, 25th March 2023
Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Lichfield Street Wolverhampton WV1 1DU

A talk and panel discussion hosted by Wolverhampton Art Gallery in collaboration with Art in Flux. Curated by Aphra Shemza.

Speakers:
Chair: Rachel Garfield | Speakers: Hammad Nasar | Haroun Hayward | Aphra Shemza

Register for your free ticket here

Images: Anwar Jalal Shemza painting The Red House in 1960 & Shemza Digital: Across Generations installation view at Wolverhampton Art Gallery.

Join us for a talk and panel discussion as we explore the work of Anwar Jalal Shemza through the lens of four distinct voices within the arts. Recently there has been a rethinking of the importance of migrant artists within British Art History. First generation British South Asian artists like Anwar Jalal Shemza have been included in museum exhibitions globally and art history books are being rewritten and rethought. These changes make it possible for new conversations to take place around curating, transforming modern British art for a contemporary audience and valuing its impact on contemporary art today.

Hosted by Rachel Garfield, Professor of Fine Art at RCA, the event will explore the potential for reimagining collections in the postwar context and hear from Hammad Nasar about his curatorial interventions in the field. We will delve into the contemporary artistic practice of Aphra Shemza (Anwar Jalal Shemza’s granddaughter) and Haroun Hayward, by featuring the shemza.digital project and current exhibition here at Wolverhampton Art Gallery and show how Shemza has inspired the next generation of British artists working today.
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This event is supported by Arts Council England & Wolverhampton City Council.

Register for your free ticket here

Images: Speech Acts Installation shot Manchester Art Gallery, photo by Michael Pollard & Haroun Hayward, Tainted Love (Study for Blasted Tree) No. 2, 2022, Oil paint, oil stick, oil pastel, and gesso on panel, Framed 93.2 x 63.5 x 4.8 cm, H_HAY0028, Photo by Charlie Littlewood. Image courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery. Copyright Haroun Hayward. 

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About the Speakers

Hammad Nasar: Curator, researcher and strategic advisor

Hammad Nasar. Image by Vipul Sangoi.

Hammad Nasar is a curator, researcher, and strategic advisor.  He is Senior Research Fellow, Paul Mellon Centre (London) where he co-leads the ‘London, Asia’ project. Earlier, he was Lead Curator, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum (Coventry); Executive Director of the Stuart Hall Foundation, London; Head of Research & Programmes at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong; and, co-founded Green Cardamom, London. Recent exhibitions he has curated / co-curated include: Divided Selves: Legacies, Memories, Belonging (2023), British Art Show 9 (2021-22), Turner Prize (2021) and Speech Acts: Reflection | Imagination | Repetition (2018-19).
 
He is a Board Member of the Henry Moore Foundation (UK) and Mophradat (Belgium), a strategic advisor to the Delfina Foundation (UK), and a Working Council Member of the Asia Forum for the Contemporary Art of Global Asias. He has advised numerous institutions internationally on awards, exhibitions, collections, partnerships and strategy. He was awarded an MBE for services to the arts, in the 2023 New Years’ Honours List.

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Haroun Hayward: Artist
​www.harounhayward.com/

Portrait of Haroun Hayward. Photo by Matthew D Coles.

Hayward has had solo exhibitions at Entractes23, Arles (2022), indigo+madder, London (2021) and Wellington Club, London (2020). He has been included in group exhibitions at Modern Art, London; Marlborough Art Gallery, London; Public Gallery, London; French Riviera, London; Galerie Isa, Mumbai, India; Paradise Row Projects, London; AORA, London; Drawing Room, London; Rivington Rooms, London; indigo+madder, London; and The Bigger Picture, curated by Bob and Roberta Smith for Mile End Pavilion, UK in 2017 amongst others. He is in the collections of the Gujral Foundation, Kiran Nadar Collection, Arun Nayar Collection among others. His work has been written about in Art Newspaper, frieze magazine, the New York Times and Architectural Digest. Hayward's debut solo exhibition with Hales, Event on the Downs, opens on 24 March 2023 at Hales London.

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Aphra Shemza: Co-Founder Art in Flux, Artist & Manager Estate of Anwar Jalal Shemza
@aphrashemza | www.aphrashemza.com

Aphra Shemza is a multimedia artist and curator. She is also Manager of the Estate of Anwar Jalal Shemza (her grandfather). Inspired by her grandfather, her work explores Modernism, her Islamic cultural heritage, sustainable practice and creating art for all. As an artist and activist, she finds ambitious ways to fuse methodologies from the past with new innovations in technology to imagine what the role of art could be in the future.

Shemza has been commissioned by and worked with: Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Barbican, Tate Britain, V&A, National Gallery X, MIMA, British Library, Arts Council of England, Canary Wharf Group, Louis Roederer, Save The Children, Morley College, Winter Lights Festival, The Other Art Fair, Electronic Virtual Arts Conference, Ars Electronica Festival, Xi’an Maker Faire, The Courtauld Institute, Times, Telegraph, London Live, Time Out, FAD Magazine, GQ, Tower Eastbourne, Poole Museum, Norden Farm, Watermans, NCCA, Bournemouth University, Kensington + Chelsea Art Week, Coventry City Council, Art in Flux, Woodcraft Folk, DINA, The Margate School and The Festival of Curiosity.