Tip of the Tongue

George Haddad

Gallery 3
Opening 05.02.20 6-8pm
Artist Talks 27.02.20 6-7pm

Tip of the Tongue mimics and distorts the traditional form of Lebanese zajal poetry performance in an effort to thaw out my identity publicly, nourishingly. As a child in Sydney I watched VHS recordings of zajal recitals from Lebanon that were shared among the migrant community. The moustached men howled odes in regional Arabic tongue to their country, to loved ones and to nature.
There is a point of contention in performing zajal in colloquial Arabic – that it may not be deemed literary. My career is dedicated to English literature and to writing works that are accepted as such. I speak colloquial Arabic filtered through my parents from their north Lebanon birthplace. Tip of the Tongue is a distillation of my understanding of the world around me growing up balancing on the edges of two languages that have, for me, emulsified into one.
Where the poets gush over Lebanon, I beg ‘Australia’ to decant my blood through my eyes and into the mouths of its dingoes. Where the men idolise each other, I sing to my migrant mother and apologise that she had to learn the ways of another desert. Where they chant about the beauty of the stars, I list the ways I am rattled and disheartened beneath them.

George Haddad’s exhibition Tip of the Tongue powered by Lūpa Media Player. More information at lupaplayer.com

Images

+ Unknown, Archive Recording Screen Grab 1, image courtesy of George Haddad
+ George Haddad, Unknown, Archive Recording Screen Grab 1 & 2, image courtesy of George Haddad

+ Tip of the Tongue, install shots, photo credit: Zan Wimberley