A space for healing 1999
Installation comprising metal implements, PVC poles, cloth, plastic objects, gold paint, vermillion red paint, sound
Dimensions variable
Collection: The artist's estate

Rummana Hussain’s Space for Healing attempts to forge an acceptable future out of a difficult past, by creating a metaphoric healing space that is a ‘hospital’ for the body and a ‘mosque’ for the soul. For Hussain, notions of healing, religion, gender and, most importantly, reconciliation are all intrinsic to her pursuit of art on the cusp of the next millennium. In Hussain’s words: ‘The hospital provides a place for physical healing; the mosque heals the spirit. But the hospital is a place where the dying prepare to face the afterlife, and the mosque could be a space for questioning life itself. And in times of war and other calamities, both the hospital and the mosque provide shelter, refuge and protection. In this project I would like to formulate new concepts about physically and spiritually joining, rectifying and curing as the basis for redeeming relationships between individuals, communities and the environment. Each of us becomes a witness to the constantly changing environment, to the spiritually and physically ephemeral nature of the world, and to the cycle of life.’

Rummana Hussain died on 6 July 1999 after a long illness. This installation is the last work she made, and the Gallery is honoured to include it in APT3.

Concept of the Installation Project:

Space for Healing, the installation, will explore different aspects of the healing process; the spiritual and the physical, personal and interpersonal, intracomunity and between nations.

In a space that in appearance would be like a mosque or a hospital; I would like to expand the context and meaning of these two institutions and to conjure up their histories in order to create a more complex notion, which will endorse and yet question their respective posts. The purpose of the questioning is to make redemptive inroads into the future, to find connections, to trace the transcendental and ever changing nature of all life and relationships.

The hospital provides a space for physical healing; the mosque heals the spirit. But the hospital is a place where the dying prepare to face the after life, and the mosque could be a space for questioning life itself. And in times of war and other calamities, both the hospital and the mosque provide shelter, refuge and protection.

In this project I would like to formulate new concepts about physically and spiritually joining, rectifying and curing as the basis for redeeming relationships between individuals, communities and the environment.

Each of us becomes a witness to the constant changing environment, to the spiritual and physically ephemeral nature of the world and to the cycle of life.

30.11.98