Mixed Media Installation, 2021
Nurulhuda Binte Mustafa
A group of 50 students were asked to share what makes them different. They could write, create or donate a personal object that responded to the question or choose not to respond.
The question was borne out of a desire to understand how we are more different than we are the same. As we become more familiar with what common curriculum, mixed classes and differentiated instruction entails; what hopefully ends in a straight line of success sometimes unwittingly converges incongruous paths of each individual finding their own.
The variety of responses left me stumped. Each vessel is barely elaborated and each gap is a voice still silent. Regardless, each is a precious piece of truth.
“If I told you the truth, would it make a difference” is meant to illustrate our desire as educators to listen and amplify each individual’s voice, yet, inadvertently disrupting the process as we try to manage the differences presented to us with our many limitations. This tension is explored by the visual metaphor of breaking out and wrapping in, while attempting to maintain order and sense – as we do in our daily work.
Nurul is a mixed-media artist who seeks out artefacts as evidence and vessels of human stories and spirit and reframes how they can be perceived. Drawn to grey areas, ambiguities and complexities of the humankind, she attempts to represent layered and varied perspectives that aim to help us be more forgiving and empathetic.
Part of her process includes interaction, interviews or surveying humans following a methodology that befits the ideas she wishes to explore. As an educator, she finds that the ebb and flow of relationships with a wide range of individuals a constant source of inspiration.
Read more about a x edge 2020 and the existing artworks.
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