Australia

As audiences step inside conference of one’s self, they are greeted by gently shifting images and sounds, alive with colour and rhythm, that blur the boundaries between the real and the unreal, the physical and the metaphysical.

Inspired by the twelfth-century tasawwuf (sufi) poem The Conference of the Birds, Khaled Sabsabi’s work places audiences at the centre of the Australia Pavilion, inviting all to listen, breathe and reflect upon the steady, enveloping pulse of life and the collective human experience of acceptance, existence and coexistence.

conference of one’s self is an ongoing commitment to humanity. It traces seven levels of doubt, love, knowledge, loss, learning, and unlearning drawn from tasawwuf thought, before opening towards an eighth level of self, where change for a shared humanity becomes possible.

Sabsabi’s journey from Lebanon to Australia in 1976, and his long connection to communities in Western Sydney, grounds this meditative experience in belonging and in multicultural, multi-faith encounters across time, people and place.