Zaiba Khan — 'Within each seed exists divine potential, may you unfurl and expand as the seed does', 2023

A threaded necklace with central pendant, granulated with mustard seed, black seed, sesame seed, aniseed and coriander seed. Watermelon seed, cowrie shell and carved date seed embellishments. Date seeds from the dates were used to break fast during Ramadan. The necklace is finished with a delicate handmade rice grain clasp.

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Zaiba Khan is a Muslim Indo-Fijian artist based in Narrm/Melbourne, Australia and born in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa/New Zealand. Khan’s practice is craft-based, engaging with object-making through gold and silversmithing, printmaking and textile. Khan seeks to translate the oral histories of her ancestors into visual language. Intricately detailed, labour intensive works are made using organic matter and sacred materials. As a descendent of Fiji Girmit, these materials hold particular significance, as does the labour of the body and hands. Exploring the divine potential of the seed and its fruit, Khan sows them into her work as her ancestors did into the land, except this time with autonomy; in the hopes of creating portals for connection and healing. For Khan, making catalyses an innate ancestral muscle memory and serves as an act of resistance.

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Invocations

Read about the exhibition

Material: sterling silver, cowrie shell, carved date seed, fine silver, lapis lazuli, tigers eye

Dimensions: pendant 6.5 x 7.5cm