Carmen-Sibha Keiso
(b. 1996, Melbourne. Lives and works in Melbourne)
Carmen-Sibha Keiso is an Arab-Australian artist and curator working in performance, video and text. Through a socially collaborative and research-based process, Keiso interrogates how we utilise place to further understand the self.
PN88 was commissioned by Experimental Intermedia Foundation in 2021 to commemorate the eighty-eighth birthday of experimental composer Phill Niblock. Filmed in 2020 from the interior of a truck driving through the Great Plains, Keiso captures a ‘passing through’ of a seemingly antiquated American landscape that is often forgotten or neglected in its contemporary disposition. The film is accompanied by a score by Brisbane-based artist Lawrence English, whose work is broadly concerned with the politics of perception, specifically in the nature of listening and sound’s capability to occupy the body.
Keiso completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the University of Melbourne in 2018 and is the director of Read the Room, an expanded literary practice space that hosts writing workshops, lectures, readings and exhibitions. Keiso has recently showcased work nationally with Hyacinth (2023), the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (2022), Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2022), the NGV (NGV Art Book Fair 2022), Centre d’Editions (2022), BLINDSIDE (2022), Min2.Report (2022), TCB Art Inc. (2023, 2021), Caves (2021), No More Poetry (2020, 2021), Miscellenia (2021), Meow Gallery (2021), Liquid Architecture (2021), West Space (2021), Mejia (2020), Lieu Journal (2020), DogMilk (2020), Un Projects (2019) and Channel 31 (2019). She has also showcased internationally with Hard to Read (2022), Experimental Intermedia (2021, 2022), Montez Press Radio (2020), Form IV (2021), Café Tissardmine (2017) and White Chapel Gallery Studio Residency Space (2014). Keiso has received awards from Yarra City Council, Regional Arts Victoria, City of Melbourne, Foundation of Contemporary Art New York, Montez Press, and The Ian Potter Cultural Trust.
PN88 appeared in Community Hall on 24–30 Jul 2023.
Film credits
PN88, 2021, Film and Sound, 15:00, © Carmen-Sibha Keiso & Lawrence English