Through multimedia projects influenced by his studies in economics, linguistics and work as a journalist, Abdul Halik Azeez observes the nuances and contradictions of Sri Lanka’s postwar urban landscape, subtly questioning the political and social transformations that continue to mould and disrupt the nation.

In this presentation, Azeez brings together works from two broader series. Two videos of a public performance as well as a video ‘desktop lecture’ are drawn from You are enough for someone to love, it’s true 2022, which makes speculative connections between trance possession, healing rituals, TikTok and mental health. A video installation, publication and series of photographs are drawn from the series ‘Desert Dreaming’ 2024, motivated by questions of identity politics within Sri Lanka’s Muslim community. The artist started this body of work by looking at his own family history through oral narratives and photography, before extending to found archives, media reports and popular culture artefacts. He specifically traced labour migration to the Middle East, as well as the influence of large shifts, such as the neoliberalisation of Sri Lanka’s economy in the 1970s; the dual civil war that began in the 1980s; and the subsequent postwar transformations in the country. Through this series, Azeez seeks to deconstruct ‘monolithic narratives regarding what it means to be Muslim in the contemporary world, both from inside and outside the community’.