Abdullah M. I. Syed: Everything and Nothing

It’s unseasonably warm when I visit Abdullah M. I. Syed in his new studio in Parramatta Artists’ Studios in Granville. The space is bare, except for his research material and the perfume of rose petals, coffee and dates. For all the time that I’ve known Syed, his hospitality has been a constant, not just socially but extending into his artistic practice. For Syed, the act of thinking, making and consuming art is as much a gesture of articulating the nuances of our complex world, as it is an offering to his audiences.

It’s been months since I last saw Syed and I start the conversation by asking him what’s new in his world. “Everything and nothing,” he says, a characteristically elusive response. Syed, I’ve learnt over the years of our friendship, operates in the space of lyrical ambiguity, and is often more concerned with understanding the nature of any given question, than providing an answer…