“Paradise”
Tarik Ahlip
18 Mar → 1 May 2022

A film still of the inside roof of a tent, stretched taught and held up by a white metal pole. The light is tinted yellow, and the fabric joins in the tent create a stripy pattern that fans out from the centre point.
Tarik Ahlip, ‘Paradise’, 2021, still from single channel moving image, 18 min. Image courtesy of artist.

Paradise reflects on a formative space, a Mosque in Canberra.

A house of the people.
A house of eschatological visions.

The visions overlap.
The industry of the Monaro and the lamb that will be sacrificed.

The silence of the plains.
The silence of the forest after burning.

Baz Amadam
(I am back again).

~~~~~~~

Paradise is a meditation on ritual, the religious strictures around the act of killing for sustenance, and the migrant act of reinvention. The film considers the ethical imprint of a theologically inflected worldview, and post-Enlightenment epistemologies. This is the first short film work by Tarik Ahlip.

This project is supported by the Australia Council for the Arts: Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups.

Public Program

Paradise, Beauty and Violence: Tarik Ahlip and Lara Chamas in conversation with Samira Farah

Saturday April 30, 2pm - 1pm, West Space, Collingwood Yards.

An in-conversation event between Tarik Ahlip and artist Lara Chamas, facilitated by Samira Farah. This conversation will unpack themes explored within Paradise around faith, beauty, violence and the Islamic migrant experience as it occurs here in Australia.

A projected image is shown through two black curtains hanging in the gallery. The film still shows a blurred curved image of trees and fire casting an amber light through darkness.
A film is projected on the gallery wall. The film still shows a large grey rock with a crack down the middle. The rock sits on grass and there are two sticks on the right crossing over in the foreground. Black curtains darken the space.
A film is projected on the gallery wall, with two speakers at either side of the image and chairs placed in front. The film still shows
A projected image on the wall shows a long stretch of white fabric supported by a black pole. The fabric is stretched loosely across a natural environment of trees and dirt. A metal support structure is in the centre of the still. There are chairs and two speakers around the room that is darkened with black curtains.
The corner of the gallery and a film projected on the wall with chairs in front is visible. The film still shows a hand with wrinkles and age spots, touching a surface covered by branches and twigs.
A close up image of sheet and cattle is distorted by a curved lens. The film still is projected on the gallery wall with a collection of chairs placed in front.
The projected film on the gallery wall shows a human arm and hand touching the back of a cow. The cow has white and brown markings. The image is distorted with a curved lens.

Tarik Ahlip works across sculpture, film, verse and sound; his practice considers poetics as capable of driving epistemic change. He has held solo exhibitions at Chapter House Lane (Melbourne), Alaska Projects (Sydney) and LON Gallery (Melbourne). He is an artist in residence at Parramatta Artists Studios, Rydalmere. He is currently working on a series of short films about the politics of God, and a solo exhibition for Verge Gallery (Sydney) in November 2022.