Artists: Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Hoda Afshar, Megan Cope, Eugenia Flynn, D Harding, Saodat Ismailova, Khaled Sabsabi, Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind, Yhonnie Scarce, Ali Tahayori and Hossein Valamanesh
ACCA is pleased to present Five Acts of Love, curated by Nur Shkembi . The exhibition featurestwelve local and international artists presenting newly commissioned, recent and more historic works across a range of mediums that explore the unexpected and nuanced manifestations of love as an intrinsic action, one that can harness the utmost depth of our humanity beyond pop culture references to romance and kitsch images of love.
Five Acts of Love offers space for reflection and an opportunity to delve into profound internal and external truth telling through the exploration of various acts of love. The exhibition revolves around five acts: resistance, revolution, intimacy, memory and annihilation. Each act of love circles around what we ultimately relinquish when we love – and are loved.
Love is broadly seen as an intimate emotional and/or physical convergence between people. There is also parental and familial love, the love shared between friends, siblings or community. Or there is the ecstasy of finding spiritual or other-worldly love, of annihilation (fanaa) and love of the Divine. In this current moment it is difficult not to see love in proximity to the tumult and turmoil of the world. We see love manifesting in great numbers, as solidarity between communities, comrades and between complete strangers in various movements across the globe. We also see the love of individuals, and of humanity, and even in nature as a form of resistance, ever evolving, anew.
The assembled works offer love as loss, and as conversations about grief and yearning. Love is also presented as memory and memorialisation. Resistance and revolution are reimagined through the earth and continued connection to it, whilst intimacy is presented within the gentleness of familial gatherings, and the company of comrades. Love is also present in the emotional register that tunes into the spiritual, and the complete letting go that encompasses love of the Divine.
Reflecting upon the words of the great Muslim scholar and poet Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, to love is to risk everything.
Guest curated by: Dr Nur Shkembi OAM
Image: Opening event, Five Acts of Love 2025. Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Photograph: Carmen Zammit.
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA)
111 Sturt Street
Southbank VIC 3006
Melbourne, Australia
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W: acca.melbourne
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The Public Galleries Association of Victoria (PGAV) acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the lands where our office is located, and all Traditional Owners of country throughout Victoria and Australia. We recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples enduring traditions and continuing creative cultures. We pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.
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