non-paradise was commissioned by the Sydney Opera House as part of their Shortwave – New Screen Commissions program
It was presented as part of the Sydney Opera House’s Outlines showcase, a playful, provocative showcase of artists that are embracing and disrupting digital platforms and technology to imagine new forms of performance.
The video can be viewed here via Stream, the Sydney Opera House’s online streaming platform:
non-paradise is a meditation on deserts. It compares the myth of the desert as an absent place with white noise, the presence of all frequencies on a spectrum being simultaneously received by an interface. Drawing parallels between white noise and social hostilities toward the desert landscape, the film reflects on the artist’s ancestral migratory heritage, colonial notions of the Other, and Islamic conceptions of paradise.
Filmed on unceded lands at Sandy Point, South Gippsland.
Videographer: Simon McWilliam
Composer: Hanif Patel
Mridingam/Ghatam: Siddharth Adityan
Special thanks: Louie, Sakina and Naseera Naeem, Jason Pearce, Matt Cornell, and James Smith
Facilitated through Critical Path’s digital and choreographic exchange program curated by Matt Cornell.
Nasim Patel 