What The Eyes Cannot See is a community collaborative storytelling project facilitated by Fremantle based artists Audrey Fernandes-Satar and Arif Satar in partnership with the Cannery Arts Centre for the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial.

Community members have been participating in art making workshops creating a series of Story Books and Memory Objects reflecting their sense of identity, culture and connection to place. The Story Books are fashioned as a Zine, short for Magazine, an innovative way of creating a small book by folding creasing and re-folding paper to create artistic books exploring the concept of ‘codified’ messages using a mixed media of collage drawing writing and painting. The Memory Objects have been made using the medium of ceramics, with development of skills in hand building techniques to create 3D objects as ‘codified’ forms that capture the essence of individual stories exploring the concept of What The Eyes Cannot See, leading to an abstraction of sorts when individual works are compiled into collective assemblages.  

The community works will be exhibited as an installation at the Cannery Arts Centre gallery alongside the artworks created by Audrey and Arif. This is a satellite exhibition for IOTA24. IOTA24 is the short name for the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial 2024, a celebration of contemporary craft that takes place in Western Australia every three years, this year from August-October,  bringing together artists, communities, makers and  artworks  from a selection of countries from around the Indian Ocean Rim.

The theme for IOTA24 is Codes in Parallel. Craft is a universal language that all humanity shares. It comes from applying thought and skill to a material, resulting in beauty which invites collective appreciation and understanding. What the Eyes Cannot See is an exploration of everyday life practice and experience that is expressed as codes, symbols and allegories of shared cultural histories, presented as a multi-layered works including the works from Esperance community members and students. 

Audrey and Arif have worked with students from Esperance Senior High School and Esperance Anglican Community School, and are offering an open invitation to community members to join in the weekend workshops. The project aims to empower individuals to express themselves through arts and cultural activities, to gain skills and confidence in taking part in creative projects and to find their own voices to articulate their histories, stories and experiences in a time where awareness of mental health is an important aspect of our collective wellbeing. 

All workshops are free with thanks to the Mt Burdett Foundation, IOTA (The Indian Ocean Triennial Australia) and the Cannery Arts Centre. The exhibition is part of the IOTA24 Festival: Indian Ocean Craft Triennial, supported by Lotterywest. The exhibition is free to attend.

Mentorship Opportunity
Capacity building within the arts community in Esperance is vital for the continued development of our local artists. This project is presenting the opportunity for two locally based emerging artists to cultivate their skills and knowledge in the area of community arts, observing and engaging with community art practice and how to facilitate or learn more about ceramics and/or exhibition installation and curation. The mentorship will encompass 20 hours for each emerging artist paid. The mentoring will be facilitated by Audrey and Arif and the Cannery Arts Centre staff, with the mentee’s applying for the position stating what outcomes they would like to achieve from the mentorship. On completion the mentee will write a report reflecting on the mentoring opportunity.  To apply for the mentorship please read the application information.

The Artists
Arif Satar and Audrey Fernandes-Satar are artists working in Walyalup, Fremantle WA. Across sculpture, drawing, text, printmaking, sound, and the moving image, they draw from ancestral stories, rituals, and crafting techniques, to create a rich dialogue between the past and the present. 

Arif Satar was born in the Island of Mozambique Africa. Growing up under the Portuguese fascist and colonial rule his sense of identity was enmeshed with a feeling of otherness. Today an investigation of his Indian-African-Arabic background is intrinsically embedded in his art practice, which draws upon densities of heritage, memory, literature and history. 

Audrey Fernandes-Satar was born in India. She grew up within a microcosm of stories of freedom and activism– collective memories shared or overhead, and then kept safe in an imaginary repository somewhere in her mind. Her artwork traverses’ poetic text, sculpture, drawing and altered photographs – grappling with history, and altering documentation from institutions.

Artwork
Artist: Arif Satar 
Medium: Digital Wallpaper with ceramic sculpture motif
Collaborator: Ceramic sculpture by community member and artist Jen Ford