Shireen Taweel

Shireen Taweel is a Sydney based artist working on Gadigal Land. Taweel’s practice is a reflection of the many cultural landscapes she inhabits as a Lebanese Australian where she employs a progressive application of copper artisan techniques to inform the construction of future representations of the sacred. Through the progressive use of heritage artisan techniques, Taweel’s most recent work rests speculative astral architecture upon a diverse foundation of past celestial technologies.

Shireen Taweel graduated from a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2015 at the School For Creative Arts Hobart, and completed a Graduate Diploma of Fine Arts in Sculpture in 2016 at The National Art School, Sydney. Her most recent solo shows include Sacred architecture and the celestial body at STATION Gallery, Sydney (2023), Shoe Bathers at Firstdraft Gallery (2022), Switching Codes at Fairfield City Gallery (2020), Holding Patterns at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney (2020) and razing legacy at Haven For Artists in Beirut (2019). Taweel is represented by STATION Gallery, Australia.

Tell us about your creative process, what drives your practice?

As an artist I’m working with the experimentation and mastery of heritage artisan coppersmithing skills, to present concepts and critical enquiry. My skills and processes have been attained over time from studio residencies and extensive research throughout the Arab region. Conceptually my studio practice is oriented around research projects related to sacred architecture, migration, language, and celestial navigation. The dual focus of researcher and artisan enables me to present heritage cultural practices to new audiences through immersive experiences, a progressive use of heritage techniques and conceptual thinking.

Copper remains a constant within your practice, as both a malleable material for sculpture and more recently as a substrate for copper-plate printmaking. What is the significance of this material in your practice and what has drawn you to experiment with printmaking as an extension of this engagement?

Working with copper has been at the core of my practice from the days of early experimentation with the material in my undergraduate studies. The material is incredibly significant to my practice as a conduit for cultural knowledge. Throughout the past ten years the growing relationship with the material and the techniques involved in its manipulation have uncovered an extensive amount of cultural heritage on a personal, and professional level. The engraving technique I employ for my sculptural forms is a technique I found crossed over into print making and allowed me to explore architectural forms and motifs in another medium while retaining and expanding the application of the heritage artisan techniques central to my practice.

What is the role of site-specificity within your practice, both in terms of the development of works and its final output?

My work is site focused as I am predominantly looking at architecture and / or geography. I am interested in the social and cultural practices which evolve through a connection to geography and are represented in the building, adopting or adapting to pre-existing, reappropriated or new architecture. The geo-psychology of place which includes the behaviours, emotions and thoughts and how these are reflected in cultural practices, ritual, migration, and sciences of the past, present and future is of interest to me.

Your works often reflect the diasporic landscape you occupy as a Lebanese Australian, stimulating cross-cultural discourse. How does architecture–personal, cultural, spiritual–contribute to this discourse and your navigation of identity, heritage and the sacred?

I am interested in the architecture that is functional in a local context whether that remains as the original purpose for which it was built or perhaps as a type of museum for its history and archives, and how this serves the expansion or geographical movement within communities. The symbolism that the architecture holds for communities such as the diaspora, a symbolism which is one aspect for the continuing fluidity of cultural rituals, personal, social and spiritual. It is also how this architecture manifests in a vastly different location with local materials and resources, contributing to the evolution of the cultural ritual, and architectural design.

Are there any female printmakers | artists that influence you?

While on residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris I came across the retrospective of Jeanne Malivel at the Bibliotheque Forne. An early 20th century French artist who worked across a plethora of mediums one which includes woodblock prints, I found her carved woodblocks and prints on display were particularly stunning.

I’m most drawn to artists who create a whole world for the audience, for me it’s one of immense generosity and genius. I adore Larissa Sansour’s work as a film maker and artist I am always captivated, she presents the complexity of her ideas with such visual poetry and narration with a familiar yet sci-fi environment.

Anicka Yi’s installations tend to stop me in my tracks when I have the privilege to encounter them. They expand our sense of evolution, and I’ll leave it at that.

Finally, what exciting projects are you working on at the moment?

I am currently on a three-month research residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris where I am engaging with collections of the Islamic/Arab Astro-sciences particularly devices used for celestial navigation. Later this year I will complete in the second part of my residency at Megalo Print Studios in Canberra continuing the conceptual development of a large triptych of engraved prints. I am also working on two public art projects across Sydney. Despite the nature of delays in the realm of public art, both are now on track and set to be completed this spring.