Marian Abboud

Marian Abboud is a multi-disciplinary Western Sydney based artist. She works across various technologies to create collective outcomes through projected images that feed into performance, installation and site-specific works. Marian uses multilingualism through movement, video, sound and text to develop live performances for civic engagement and social activism.

Marian works with participants from diverse communities to develop agency and socially responsive projects using curiosity as the springboard for cultural exchange and developing unique learning opportunities through creative expression. She is passionate about forging connections and creating meaning across perceived borders of place, language and identity.

Her interests lie in oral histories, ancestral knowledge and collective mythologies, navigating themes of memory, loss and resilience. Marian’s practice is the result of a constant attempt to translate internal psychological conflicts into physical experiences. Her works connect this individual awareness with the collective political and social environment. Although Marian’s works develop from deeply personal and daily experiences, they often reference layered and complex history that point to universal experiences of sovereignty, geopolitics and migration. Marian creates complex narratives by engaging with the community to build multi-layered works.

Marian graduated from the University of Western Sydney with a Bachelor of Visual Communication. She has exhibited extensively locally and nationally and has collaborated on many dance and performance-based projects including MONA FOMA, Hobart; 24 Frames, Carriageworks, Sydney; as well as Not Her Reflection, a travelling performance at Artspace, Sydney. Marian has worked as an artist educator for the Art Gallery of NSW, Kaldor Public Art Projects, Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE), Urban Theatre Projects (UTP), Arab Theatre Studio (ATS) and Save the Children. Marian was a One Year Studio Artist at Artspace in 2020, as well as Artist in Residence for UTS Library in 2021.

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