Nicole Barakat
Nicole Barakat is a Kfarsghabi, Lebanese artist who creates intricate hand-stitched and sculptural works.
Nicole Barakat is an artist and educator living on the lands and waters of the Gadigal People. She works with deep listening and intuitive processes with intentions to transform the conditions of everyday life. Her artwork engages unconventional approaches to art-making, creating intricate works that embody the love and patience characteristic of traditional textile practices. Her works include hand-stitched and hand-cut cloth and paper drawings, sculptural forms made with her own hair, cloth and plant materials as well as live work where she uses her voice as a material.
Barakat’s creative practice is rooted in re-membering and re-gathering her South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) ancestral knowing, including coffee divination and more recently working with plants and flower essences for community care.
She has exhibited and performed throughout Australia and internationally in Seattle, San Francisco, Stockholm and London. Recent exhibitions include Unravelling Queerly at the Australian Design Centre in 2023; solo exhibition, you reverberate at Airspace Projects and collaborative artwork with the Rohingya Women’s Development Organisation for the Powerhouse Museum’s exhibition Eucalyptusdom in 2021; Isma’ {listen} at Firstdraft in 2020; and 10 Degrees Hotter at PARi, Parramatta in 2019.
Earlier this year, she co-curated A time to thrive at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and in 2022 curated re-member, at the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery which featured the work of eight SWANA artists.
Barakat has been a finalist in the Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award in 2019 and the Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award in 2011 and 2013. She undertook an artist residency in Bethlehem, Palestine in 2010 and was recently in residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France in 2023.
Barakat completed a Bachelor of Applied Arts (Craft Arts) in Textiles in 2002 with first class honours at the University of NSW Art & Design.
She has worked as an educator in the arts for over 20 years, including lecturing in Fine Arts (textiles) at UNSW Art & Design (2003 – 2011) and working as an artist educator at the Art Gallery of NSW (2016 – 2018) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (2013 – present).
In this interview, Barakat shares her journey as an artist, emphasising her intuitive and material-driven creative process, the role of artists in speaking about injustice, the importance of recognising the diverse skills and knowledge artists have beyond selling their artwork, and how NAVA's Code of Practice, particularly the fees and wages schedule, helps legitimise and clarify artists' rights and working conditions.
Video production by Atypical 2024.
Photo by Jacquie Manning 2024.
ID: Portrait of Nicole Barakat sitting on a tall stool in her studio. She is surrounded by brightly coloured textile works, including a large wall piece behind her, layers of red and green on the desk in front of her and to the right of the frame is a long red dress adorned in embroidery is hanging on a rack of clothes. Nicole has long dark hair, bright red lips and purple framed glasses. She wears a dark dress and keffiyeh around her neck and shoulders. In her hands, she holds a light piece of white organza with gold stitching.
