Zaiba Khan — 'No home should be without honey, as is the way of the Prophet', 2023

A tablet designed to be worn or hung in the home as a blessing and protective amulet. Double rice grain border, sesame border, cumin and corriander seed background with two central mustard seed and cardamom pod bees, face to face.

Carved date seed from date used to break fast in the month of Ramadan. 

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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, silk cord, carved date seed. Dates used to break fast during Ramadan.

Dimensions: pendant 5 x 7cm