The first major solo presentation of Ahamat’s practice, Extinguishing Hope is a West Space Commission, presented in partnership with West Space and curated by Sebastian Henry-Jones.
Combining sound production, literary studies, media theory and filmmaking, Extinguishing Hope articulates the aesthetics and psychosocial affect of always and ever-unfolding disaster. The work draws from big and small screen cinematic languages to produce a non-narrative atmosphere Ahamat describes as ‘slow cinema for short attention spans.’
Extinguishing Hope sees Akil further exploring his fraught, fictional and interspecies relationship with a snail – a recurring character in his works that embodies broader ideas of truth, navigation, and escape. Reminiscent of absurdist theatre, Extinguishing Hope presents variations of the same scene, in which the pair rehearse divergent and plural sensings of their situation.
Built in a games engine, within the world of Extinguishing Hope darkness is a motif representing our age of hyper-rationality, producing an excess of truth that is impossible to make sense of. Through hidden looping techniques that resemble the mechanics of social media platforms, the recursive gamespace inhabited by Akil and the snail becomes a site to consider the formation of our subjectivities under these conditions. How are our desires, imaginations and experiences shaped by crisis, as it is mediated through our information-saturated reality?
Drawing from Islamic theology, philosophy and the poetry of language and speech, at the core of Extinguishing Hope is the question, how do we find our way in the dark?
About the artist
Akil Ahamat is a Sri Lankan Malay artist and filmmaker currently based on Gadigal Country. In their work, they animate the non-human in order to talk to it. In the crinkles and whispers of these conversations, shapes of the inhuman forces that govern our lives emerge, as well as our relationships to them.
About the curator
Sebastian Henry-Jones' curatorial approach is led by an interest in DIY thinking, and situated in the context provided by the gentrification of Sydney and Melbourne’s cultural landscapes.
Sebastian is the Curator at West Space, having worked as a Curatorial Assistant for the 22nd and 23rd editions of the Biennale of Sydney, NIRIN and Rivus and as guest curator for the 2023 Churchie Emerging Art Prize at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Sebastian has staged group exhibitions and independent projects across the East Cost of the continent. He is a co-founder of DIY and experimental arts platforms Desire Lines and Emerson, and former editor at Runway Journal.
Gallery directions
UTS Gallery
Level 4, Peter Johnson Building (Building 6)
702 Harris St, Ultimo,
University of Technology, Sydney
Extinguishing Hope is a West Space Commission, supported by Creative Australia and presented in partnership with UTS. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication designed by Alex Tanazefti.
Banner image: Akil Ahamat, Extinguishing Hope, 2024, (moving image still). Courtesy the artist. © Akil Ahamat 2024.
