The Biennale of Sydney, one of the largest contemporary visual art events in Australia, opened its 18th edition from June-September 2012. Titled, ‘All our relations’, it has artists from all around the globe projecting the Biennale themes of migration, contamination, corruption and coercion at different venues in and around Sydney. A number of artists produced installations on Cockatoo Island — the once dilapidated penal and maritime precinct in Sydney Harbour.

Other than its convict and industrial history, the forgotten island is also the habitat for hungry birds; solitude and reverie here requires an extreme measure of patience. Miniature artist Imran Qureshi created a new site-specific work called, ‘They shimmer still’ by transforming the old, abandoned ramp of Slipway Number One with intricate acrylic drawings.

The work will be evaluated for its conceptual and technical qualities, but behind the scenes the process of visualising and transforming ideas into viewable structured work is seldom given any thought.

Moving between intricate miniature painting formats and massive installations in different architectural locations, Qureshi negotiates vastly opposing scales, media and technicalities, to express his ideas. Here, he talks about the challenges and pressures of addressing contemporary concerns and maintaining a progressive art practice.

Qureshi recently won the Public Voice Award at the Alice Awards in Belgium for the category of public art for his Sharjah Biennial installation, 'Blessings upon the land of my love’.

The colours blue and red, the radiating foliate and floral motif and spatters, streams and rivulets of bloodlike paint are all common to your major site-specific installations like the ones installed at Modern Art Oxford 2007, Art Dubai 2008, Hanging Fire Asia Society 2010, Sharjah Biennale 2011 and now the Sydney Biennale. What are the important factors that enable you to bring new meaning to each installation with the same vocabulary?

As with my smaller paintings, I do not work to any predefined concepts or preparatory drawings, but rather collaborate closely with nature’s forces and respond to the location’s structural logic and accidents of surface. This work, ‘They shimmer still’, was done after the Sharjah installation (Blessings … love) so there was great pressure on me on how to make it different from the previous project while still using the same elements of blood and foliage. I think I did justice to the current installation in many different ways. I tried to create a dialogue between the real bushes at the site and my painted imagery of the foliage. At times both connected so well due to shadows of the actual bushes on the top of my surface. Interestingly, I had painted almost similar foliage before in many formal, small-scale miniature paintings as an important part of a landscape.

The ramps eroded concrete floor pockmarked with holes and large rusty bars and bolts transformed the slipway dramatically into a graveyard like site which gave a new dimension and gravity to my painted imagery. Rust leaking out of these fixtures was flowing towards the sea; this enabled me to make a direct relationship between blood and water in a very subtle way. I expect viewers to feel the mystery and make stories out of the installation, relate it with themselves on a personal level, and the world crisis in a broader context, rather than just confine the work to the history of the island.

Regarding vocabulary, I have never opted for something totally new or rejected previous concerns/ideas deliberately. For years I have been exploring the tension between life-giving and destructive forces by using the same foliage motif in different spaces and ways. I personally think that there are many other things which are taking my art practice forward on different levels even though the concept remains the same. This is something which has given strength to my work. In 2001, I did a site-specific project titled, 'Coming down to earth' for Khoj International Artists’ Association workshop, in Modinagar India, and it was on a very personal level with no political meaning to it.

I was only exploring the miniature painting genre by breaking its boundary and bringing it into a real architectural space. Later at the Singapore Biennale 2006, it was done in a more painterly way with subtle political undercurrent. But with time at the Sharjah and Sydney Biennale this year, the political content became more obvious and powerful than my previous site-specific projects mainly due to a major change in the world politics which affected people’s personal lives.

Interestingly rather than using too many elements and saying nothing, ever since the Sharjah Biennale I am using just one colour (blood red) in these installations to create a dialogue between blood and foliage and each time it impacts more powerfully than before. My expressive symbolism refers to the state of different parts of the world today, in which violence and destruction are a tragic reality. Moreover, these projects dealing with challenges related to the specific site and its scale is what really brings something new to the work/art practice, while elements remain the same.

Was it challenging to work on this installation? Unlike architectural enclosures of previous sites, this massive new location is entirely in the open and the splintered unkempt ramp is overgrown with weeds and dry grass.

Previously the structure of a building/enclosure — its walls, columns, openings and floors – became the grid on which the installation developed. But creating this installation was the most challenging experience of my artistic career. I faced a lot of technical difficulties in terms of surface and its reaction to my paint. Sunlight in Australia was so strange and strong, it made me almost blind. While I was working, I was unable to see my own painting most of the time. Then I could not paint for many days due to heavy rain showers and this was very distracting and broke the tempo of my work. But producing this installation was a great learning experience for me. I realised that in strong sunlight, if you are looking at the work from one side (when you are facing the sun) you do not see anything at all there. Everything just disappears except the light pink tone, but when you watch it from the opposite side (when sun is behind and you are looking at the work) each and every details comes out amazingly well. This is something I had never experienced in my art making practice before.

Briefly describe the title, ‘They shimmer still’?

This title, came from the English translation (by Shoaib Hashmi) of Faiz Ahmed Faiz's poetry Dasht e tanhai main, Aye jaan e jahan larza hai. I found it quite relevant to this work as it not only goes with the history of that site but is also applicable to current issues. It is not just about the people who sacrificed their lives in history, but it is a message of hope for all ages.

Imran Qureshi’s installations in Sydney Biennale, titled as ‘They shimmer still’