Suadade

Verge Gallery, 2021

Casey Ayres

Mariia Zhuchenko

Monica Rani Rudhar

Szymon Dorabialski

Verge Archived Exhibitions

The word Saudade comes from the Portuguese language. It is a word used to express an emotional state encompassing a longing for someone, something or somewhere that is absent; for the unattainable; or for the very presence of absence itself. It differs from nostalgia in that it can be a yearning for something that may never have existed in the first place. The artists came across this word repeatedly when trying to find a way to explain a feeling they all share as a result of migration. A certain longing for a place - geographical but also cultural, emotional and in time - which may not exist anymore, or had ever existed, which formed so strongly each of their identities yet in many ways feels so foreign.

The artworks in this exhibition give an insight into each of the artists’ personal sense of being in the world. They share the common ground of otherness; with one foot testing the waters of the dominant culture, and the other in an imagined ‘mother country’. The works emerge from the excavations of familial mythology and personal experiences in an effort to acknowledge what came before and a desire to create a place for oneself, existing between multiple places and times.

Exhibition Essay By Audrey Newton