Twilight Island is a contemplation of a time spent on a volcanic island. What seemed unchanged for millennia probed the question as to what could have been a very different trajectory had the human species chosen to live in accord with the natural environment.
The series resonates with several subtexts of themes and cycles. A succession of vistas, from volcanic craters to desert plateaux, is juxtaposed with landmarks, memorials and recreational spaces where spectacles are set to unfold in a succession of endless tourism. A polarising axis is drawn between the earthly transformations over eras, laid bare on this island, and the minute cycles of summer seasons and the coming of age of two girls, my twin daughters.
Within this brief reflective bracket lies the vast wilderness, an earthly stage on which generational rites and rituals come into being but to which, we remain oblivious to.
About the Artist
Artist WebsiteLeslie Hakim-Dowek is a visual artist of Lebanese origin based in London and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Portsmouth. War and wilderness are over-arching themes in her practice as stories of warfare and the continued abuse of our environment both stem from man’s struggle to control, tame and own the wilderness. In relation to her homeland, her practice often focuses on issues of identity, migration and memory combining photography, archival material and creative writing.
Besides her creative practice, she partakes in many academic projects and events often related to the themes and issues extensively explored during the AHRC Ottoman Pasts, Present Cities: Cosmopolitanism and Transcultural Memories conference project at Birkbeck College such as the hidden histories of minorities of the Middle East. She was the visual advisor for this conference and curated the exhibition East and West: Visualising the Ottoman City.
She has widely exhibited in the UK and abroad and her work is in many private and public collections including Manchester Art Gallery, Unilever, Rochdale Art Trust and Cranford Collection.
