Hasan and husain essop biography for kids

Refuge: the state of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or difficulty.

In Refuge , twin South African artists Hasan and Husain Essop address the cultural conflicts surrounding questions of national belonging that have spawned from the Syrian refugee crisis.

From the perspective of young Muslims living in the Islamic diaspora, the Essops have produced new works that investigate mainstream media representations of the refugee crisis according to the perception that there is increasing misunderstanding and fear of Islam in the secular world.

The exhibition poses the question: ‘what constitutes refuge?’, presenting new works – photographs, sculptural installations and video – which consider the traumas of millions of individuals who have been made into collateral damage as a result of this devastating conflict.

The works also explore the circumstances leading to the ongoing civil war in Syria and juxtapose the destructive propaganda and recruitment tactics of extremist groups like ISIS with the peace and spiritual fulfillment that many find in Islam.

In a series of photographs, the Essops work in their characteristic mode, performing within the frame of the camera to imagine the experiences of people displaced by forces much larger than them. The work also makes a connection with South Africa’s history of forced displacement and the legacies of slavery and colonialism that first brought Islam to the Cape.

This self-reflexive impulse is playfully re-employed in a series of proposed ‘Muslim superheroes’ in which the Essops amalgamate American comic book and action figures with heroes and villains of Islam to question Western assumptions about cultural difference.

Sculptural installations lend a visceral immediacy to events in Syria that are mostly experienced in the abstract via mass media. As a deliberate counterpoint to the propaganda videos of extremist groups, the video filmed in The Holy Kaaba in Mecca gives a glimpse into a m

Exercise

On watching the video, and finding more examples on their work to display on my blog, I have exactly the same opinions now as I did then.

The sense of split personality is emphasised in most of their composites by the obvious differing modes of attire, either dressed in designer clothes, traditional garb and occasionally army camouflage gear, the twin’s ‘doubles, triples and multiples act out contradictory stereotypical identities.’

Initially the images appear playful, boys being boys, scenes full of ‘comic overacting and physical antics.’ However, on closer inspection there are many signs and symbols that indicate a more sinister undertone. For example, the brightly coloured outfits worn in Pennsylvanians are owned by ‘a notorious Cape Town gangster’, and the site where Thornton Road was shot, is the scene of an apartheid-era massacre.

Our work questions global and local hegemonies. We explore the influence of Western popular culture and the distorting effects it has on existing religions and cultures. Internal conflicts are expressed through performance.

Pit Bull Training (2007) portrays this conflict with less subtlety.

Shot in Cape Town’s illegal dog-fighting arena, the photograph shows two pit bulls braced to fight each other, Essop clones waving a fluffy toy dressed in American colours between them like a red flag to a bull. The conflict between East and West then, is an internalised one; the Essop clones playing both victim and aggressor.

REFUGE

Twin bothers Hasan and Husain Essop showed their work at an exhibition called Refuge at the Goodman Gallery in August 2017. The Muslim brothers who are from Cape Town used this exhibition to raise questions about what it means to be Muslim in a world  which is increasingly Islamophobic. The exhibition is largely influenced by the Syrian civil war and comprises of the Essops trademark photographs, an installation and a video.

The images above – Saudi Man and Dark Imaam are a twist on our perception of ‘superheroes’ within western pop culture. Hollywood movies and televisions shows  are usually based on the tropes of white, male hero figures who represent the forces of good while the villains are often cultural ‘others’ – black, Asian or Muslim. The Essop brothers make us question what happens when the superheroes bear signs commonly associated with Islam.

The installation Are we there yet? featuring a dinghy, oars and clothes strewn behind is a chilling reference to the thousands of refugees who flee from religious violence. Besides crossing dangerous seas in flimsy vessels, these people then land in countries where they are treated with open hostility.

Since Islam forbids the representation of religious and human figures in art – the brothers choose to use only their own images in their works. They use photographic techniques and different guises to create the multiple images of themselves found in each picture.

As devout Muslims who believe their faith offers peace and spiritual fulfillment, the brothers use their work to examine negative propaganda, the rise of extremist terror groups and the displacement of people due to religious differences.

Hasan and Husain Essop’s works will also be shown at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (2018).

Hasan and Husain Essop, South Africa, winners Young Artist Award.

Facina-Qiblah, 2010.

This year’s prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art was awarded to twenty eight year old twin brothers Hasan and Husain Essop. This annual award includes sponsorships towards an exhibition which starts its country wide tour at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown before travelling on to Nelson Mandela Bay. This years’ exhibition titled UNREST opens in Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum on 24 July 2014 at 17:30 for 18:00. Associate Professor (Philosophy), Andrea Hurst from the School of Language, Media and culture at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University will open this prominent exhibition.

From the series Hallal Art, 2009.

Hasan and Husain Essop have worked together in multiple media since graduation from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2007. The artist’s work is presented in large scale photographs illustrating scenes reconstructed from everyday life in which they themselves are the main characters. Duplicated through photo editing, the twins play multiple roles within these photographic panoramas which are based on everyday life and deal with themes related to community, religion and popular culture. “Our series of work highlights a multi-cultural clash between religion and popular cultures,” say the Essops.

The Young Artist Awards were started in 1981 by the National Arts Festival to acknowledge emerging, relatively young South African artists who have displayed an outstanding talent in their artistic endeavours. These prestigious awards are presented annually to deserving artists in different disciplines, affording them national exposure and acclaim.

The exhibition closes on 31 August 2014

From the series Remembrance, 2012.

On their series REMEMBRANCE from 2012:

In a new body of work, Hasan and Husain Essop explore the notion of memory, specifically in r