“Aniwar’s work can be seen as a vortex of historical cultural memory, geography and environment, and the constant exchange occurring at the heart of Eurasia. It is a call from the frontier, both alluring and compelling in its vibrant uniqueness. Welcome to the Borderlands.”

Borderlands is the first show of Uyghur contemporary art to be held in Australia.  

The artist, Aniwar Mamat, was born in the ancient Silk Road caravanserai oasis town of Kargilik in the south-west of China’s Xinjiang Province.

While part of China, historically Xinjiang has looked west, rather than east, such is its remoteness from Han China. Its Uyghur people are essentially Turkic, much of their language is derived from Turkic roots and they are Muslims. Islam has been and remains the prevailing cultural influence on Xinjiang’s Uyghur population. And Islam came to Xinjiang from the west but then went no further east. Xinjiang is the borderland – the frontier – between west and east.

For millennia, the frontiers between what today we call Xinjiang and Central Asia were completely porous, with people shifting unimpeded, back and forth, across them. Turkic, Persian, Hindu, Buddhist, Shamanist cultural expressions intermingled. This was the air that Aniwar grew up breathing.

Although formally trained in the east, in Tianjin and Beijing, Aniwar’s work embraces all the influences he absorbed growing up in the far west. One is first struck by the vividness of the work. The intensity of his colours brings to mind the clarity of light in the desert landscapes of Xinjiang and the brilliance of Persian architecture, as can be seen in the great mosques of Samarkand. Many of the works in this show have geometric patterns, conjuring up the spirit of Islamic art and design but, in Aniwar’s hands, rigid form gives way to freedom of expression.

The leading Melbourne-based curator, Dr Damian Smith, also identifies in an essay commissioned for this exhibition, another powerful influence on Aniwar’s work: early Soviet, or Russian, Constructivism inspired by the works of Kandinsky and Malevich.

This presence is particularly prominent in Aniwar’s works in felt. These are exceedingly rare pieces, made in Aniwar’s birth town, Kargilik, the only remaining place in Xinjiang where the tradition of felt making still persists. Aniwar worked with the village’s felt makers where the pieces were made from local wool and pressed layer upon many layers, coloured by stencils at each stage. These have been collected by the National Gallery of Victoria.

This show also presents Aniwar’s newest works not exhibited elsewhere before. These works in vivid, exquisite, colours apply the geometric shapes of the Constructivist reference onto a speckled palette painted on corrugated plastic sheeting. For an Australian audience one is at the same time reminded of indigenous art vernacular and the utilitarian iron sheeting common place in Australia’s rural outback.

Aniwar’s work can be seen as a vortex of historical cultural memory, geography and environment, and the constant exchange occurring at the heart of Eurasia. It is a call from the frontier, both alluring and compelling in its vibrant uniqueness.  Welcome to the Borderlands.

Dr Geoff Raby AO

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