In the on-going series Currency of love, Abdullah MI Syed painstakingly mends prints of fallen or decayed leaves taken from his mother’s money plants, Epipremnum aureum. Syed’s mother Azra ‘adopted’ these plants when her four sons relocated overseas in their pursuit of education or other professional prospects. The plants therefore, as speculated by Syed, allowed Azra to nurture and care for something in the absence of her four sons. Once photographed, Syed repairs each leaf print with 24 carat gold leaf, an act that draws on kintsugi (golden joinery), the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics. Missing segments and holes are also restored with a collage of new and old banknotes like fabric patches, some of which were gifted to the artist by friends, colleagues, collectors and his mother. Such repair draws on the role of rufoogare (darner) as the healer of damaged cloth in South Asian art and Islamic mysticism. For Syed, this act intimately evidences his mother’s labour, dedication and care for her sons. It also acknowledges the commitment she made to support Syed as an artist.
The aesthetic judgment used to repair each leaf is based upon Syed’s ongoing reconciliation with the subjective nature of perfection and imperfection where each leaf invariably becomes a snapshot of Syed and his mother’s shared views on the social and political climate of a society, travel, art, education, nature, spirituality, mortality and the cosmos.


About concept of Care (The National AGNSW curatorial premise):

I grew up in a family where concepts of attendance, intimacy, care and closeness are celebrated as basic aspects of the human experiences. But it took me a while to truly understand them, embrace them and make them part of my everyday existence and art practice. Although my studio practice, to an extent, has the care element but it was skewed with notions of achieving perfection, finding material success and getting a stable and confortable life. It was only when I left America and return home (last two decade) I slowly worked towards finding a balance. The way I see it the word care has "are" - it is plural and require we, us and the community to fully activate. 

I was close to my mother, Azra Waseem. Upon discovering that growing up her secret desire was to be an artist and a writer and to get recognition for her work, it made me realised that her dream can come true through me. She was a strong matriarch at home and compassionate leader in the community. Despite having a talent for art which she clearly demonstrated in her craft ideas and skills, she never able to learn/practice art professionally. I feel her desire and dream manifested in me and my elder sister (who bedsides my mother assists me and teaches me many domestic craft – thou cooking I learned a bit from my mother and now I am learning a few things from my wife). Despite studying Applied Chemistry, circumstances led me to move to America where I realised that art and design is something I want to pursue. Hence changed fields and studied design, drawing and 3D Arts in Oklahoma. Then upon encouragement of my mentor, Dr. James R. Watson, I decided to pursue education and teaching and got a M.Ed. and began teaching at UCO, University of Central Oklahoma. Initially, my parents were not happy to hear that I want to be a designer/artist. My mother wants me to have a ‘stable and normal’ life - a family, a 9 to 5 job and earn money. Later she came around but only after her visit to the USA in 2003. She saw what I was doing, assisted me on an installation for which I won an Installation artist award in Oklahoma. She warmed up to my identity as an artist and began sharing her dreams and life with me. I took her to the museums where she saw works about Mother and Child and Bill Viola’s video works, which further fuelled her imagination. Seeing great artworks and visuals deeply impacted my mother. She then said that she is happy for me to pursue art but I should go all the way (means get a PhD). She has also given me a permission to create an artwork based on her if I ever wished to, even though her orthodox religious beliefs forbid such an act/permission. Since then, she has given me many of her old photographs, drawings and textile/embroideries that have many stories of her past. She nurtured my craft and I conserved her as my first life and art guru whereas my father is my first spiritual teacher. They fully supported my art career and encouraged me in every way. She assisted me on a few projects and showed me how to give care – from an everyday object to a human heart.
Lastly the ideas of care are towards elderly specially parents are embedded at an early age and primarily came from Pakistani cultural and Islamic religious teachings where parents, especially mother is placed on the highest pedestal. It is advised in Islam that how parents have a responsibility to care for their children physically and emotionally, it is also the responsibility of children to take care of parents when they are at a fragile physical and emotional stage, like children, and need time, care, love and empathy. The issues are mortality, ageing and death are increasingly becoming interesting subjects for me to explore.