Intersections - Reading the Space

"Conceived and co-curated by Barberis, Intersections: Reading the Space: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, was a visual dialogue between 3 female artists of different continents and religious backgrounds, negotiating the sensitive territory of belief. 911 happened a year later and the dialogue suddenly became political.<br />The artists, who work in different media, all use abstractions of text and language as a theme in their work. By creating non-linguistic images from various texts, Parastou Forohaur, Jane Logemann and Barberis allow audiences to ""read the space"" whether the alphabets they use are familiar or not. <br />Intersections offered a unique experience of seeing contemporary art reflect the complex and fragile artistic negotiations that exist among often disparate groups in a changing world, connecting them to the interface and investigations of inter-faith activity during this time. This exhibition was not ecumenical. <br />Works record and present ancient sources of religious texts as a guide to re-think, re-connect and re-establish approaches to cross-cultural dialogue. <br />As well as individual pieces the exhibition had at its core a dialogue worked onto cloth over the course of a year, with each artist working on it 3 times, last was Barberis, who finished the piece for the exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourne. Intersections was the first exhibition from this museum to be shown internationally at the prestigious Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco. Barberis received substantial Arts Victoria and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch grants for the Australian exhibition and catalogue. The Age and the HeraldSun had reviews as well as the Australian Jewish Newspaper and Journal. It was written up in Art Monthly as an event and won an Honourable Mention from Museums Australia as one of the best exhibitions in Victoria for 2005."<br /&gt