16 AUGUST - 9 SEPTEMBER
FELTDARK
FELTGRADUATE AWARD

SHANI ENGELBRECHT
NOT WHITE/NOT BROWN

Works shown

not white/not brown, 2023, single-channel video, 4:38 minutes
not white/not brown curtain, 2023, found fabrics and textiles, hessian, safety pins, cotton thread, ink markers, felt, buttons, and mixed media
not white/not brown tree, 2023, cotton, hessian, and scratch cards.

FELTdark Screening times: Every evening: 6 – 12 pm

Statement

"Not white/not brown" is a video work and textile installation that explores the intimate nature of vulnerability and the discomfort felt with not knowing one's cultural identity. The ambivalent feeling of not knowing whether I belong to my whiteness or brownness is encapsulated in the video, which conveys my vulnerability and acknowledges racial trauma. The video represents a 'window' and is accompanied by a hand stitched curtain which symbolises how I reveal and conceal my cultural identity to myself and others. The two pieces together show the betweenness of being mixed race and the intimacy of exposing how one feels about their cultural identity. 

Bio

Shani Engelbrecht is a multidisciplinary artist who was born to a German-Australian father and raised by a mother with Fijian-Indian heritage. Her work explores her experience growing up in Australia and the feeling of being caught between two cultures. Race and identity are at the core of Engelbrecht’s practice as she interrogates the incidences of racism experienced by people of colour daily

Photography: Brianna Speight