Friday 26 July - Sunday 8 September Tues - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat - Sun 9am - 1pm

The Red Chador: Stranded

Anida Yoeu Ali

The Red Chador series addresses Islamophobia and has been performed in 16 cities across seven countries since 2015. The Red Chador disappeared in 2017 in Tel Aviv, Israel and her death was mourned across three continents: the US, Asia and Australia. She was rebirthed in Honolulu with a spectrum of rainbow-sequined chadoras. In her rebirth, The Red Chador re-emerged as a community.

In this film, The Red Chador and her Rainbow Brigade of chadoras arrive on the shores, streets and landmarks of Gurambilbarra / Townsville. Here the Red Chador is welcomed by Aboriginal Elders of the Bindal people in a smoking ceremony which sets the path for this journey. Through silent gestures and cloaked in long sequin chadors or “Muslim” headdresses, the chadoras walk and weave between settlers, tourists and the Traditional Owners of the land. They are fully veiled with no face or gender identification. They reflect what is already present amongst people: If you are afraid, you will experience fear. If you are suspicious, you will distrust us. And if you are welcoming, you will be met with warmth and openness. In between leery gawks, hesitant smiles and bombings, the chadoras offer a fun game of rugby and friendly Islamic gestures to onlookers in the form of the heart-shake and silent bows.

This film is a commissioned work of Studio Revolt resulting from a two-week residency in 2023 hosted by Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts. Anida Yoeu Ali is a Khmer-Muslim American performance artist whose work uses religious aesthetics to provoke ideas of otherness, and Japanese filmmaker Masahiro Sugano brings a unique cinematic vision to their collaborations as Studio Revolt.

This project is an Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts commission, assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body.

Anida Yoeu Ali is an interdisciplinary artist whose works span performance, installation, new media, public encounters, and political agitation. Utilising an interdisciplinary approach to artmaking, her installation and performance works investigate the artistic, spiritual and political collisions of a hybrid transnational identity. Ali has performed and exhibited internationally at the Haus der Kunst, Palais de Tokyo, Musée d'art Contemporain Lyon, Jogja National Museum, Malay Heritage Centre of Singapore, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, The Smithsonian, and Queensland Art Gallery| Gallery of Modern Art. Ali’s solo show “Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence” is currently on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum and marks the first time a Cambodian American artist has been shown in the museum’s 90 year history. Her artistic works have been the recipient of grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, the National Endowment of the Arts and the Art Matters Foundation. She received her B.F.A. from University of Illinois and an M.F.A. from School of the Art Institute Chicago. Currently based in Tacoma, Ali is the co-founder of Studio Revolt, an award-winning media lab with filmmaker Masahiro Sugano. Ali serves as a Senior Artist-in-Residence at the University of Washington Bothell and has a transnational artistic practice between the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S.

Born and raised in Osaka, Japan, Masahiro Sugano debuted his short animation HISAO at Sundance in 1999. His first feature SECOND MOON premiered at Busan in 2006. While living in Cambodia, Sugano made an award-winning documentary CAMBODIAN SON about a deported ex-gang member turned poet from the U.S. The film won several international awards, including the Special Jury Prize at the 2014 Cultural Resistance Film Fest of Lebanon 2014, the 2015 Golden Hanoman Prize at the Jogja Asian Film Festival, and the 2016 Best Documentary Award given by the National Asian American Journalists Association. In 2024, he will premiere his third feature film IF HAFEZ WROTE A HAIKU FOR COWBOYS which connects the mundane lives of characters living in Iran, Japan and the US. Sugano’s films reflect his own origin of fighting isolation, revealing universality, and blowing away loneliness and meaninglessness. His films screen internationally, in cinemas, museums, schools and prisons. He earned a BA in philosophy from Cal State Northridge and an MFA in film/animation from the University of Illinois-Chicago. Sugano currently lives in Tacoma and is Senior Artist-in-Residence at the University of Washington Bothell where he teaches courses in art, filmmaking, and global studies.