Sara Jajou

is an Assyrian-Chaldean artist working at the intersection of contemporary histories and ancient futures. 


Publications
Exhibitions
CV
About
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Selected Works
  1. Shimane ‘d Bakhtathe 
  2. Apparitions
  3. I like to be a girl with fur
  4. (My mother's song) أغنية أمي
  5. I met my lover barefoot
  6. My Jidu tells good stories
  7. English-Sureth Dictionary
Exhibitions
Love Song, 2024, Bus Projects, Melbourne

Love Song, 2024, Bus Projects, Melbourne, photo: Astrid Mulder


500 years ago I was introduced to violence.

52 years ago we were thrust into loss.

20 years ago I was carved out of love.

Last month I linked with grief.


So in the face of the world ending, I surrender my pain and return to love instead.


And that’s where I’m at right now.

Text by Jermaine Ibarra.
Hero image and interactive exhibition activity, design by Sara Jajou.


Go Home Yankee (and take me with you), 2023, GalleryGalleryInc, Melbourne
Go Home Yankee (and take me with you), 2023, GalleryGalleryInc, Melbourne, promotional poster in Tagalog, design: Sara Jajou
Go Home Yankee (and take me with you), 2023, GalleryGalleryInc, Melbourne, promotional poster in Arabic, design: Sara Jajou
Go Home Yankee (and take me with you), 2023, GalleryGalleryInc, Melbourne, promotional poster in English, design: Sara Jajou
Go Home Yankee (and take me with you), 2023, GalleryGalleryInc, Melbourne, promotional poster in Sureth, design: Sara Jajou
Go Home Yankee (and take me with you), 2023, GalleryGalleryInc, Melbourne, promotional poster in English, design: Sara Jajou


Go Home Yankee (and take me with you) is a diasporic meditation on displacement that asks where one’s home is when the coloniser leaves behind his ghost. Curated by Jermaine Ibarra and Sara Jajou, they pose an intergenerational conversation with motherlands and recenter diaspora as active caretakers of culture, land and community. The exhibition considers the remnants of Western imperialism in The Philippines and Iraq and speaks to the impressions made on the cultural, religious, militant, economic and ecological landscapes of motherlands.

Decolonially, Ibarra and Jajou soften boundaries of intimacy, hospitality and domesticity - inviting audiences into an alliance of kinship and reciprocity. Their directions meet at the axis of empathy for each other and their kin, in the sharing and carrying of cultural knowledge. With both resonance and tenderness, the works look to expressions of language to be heard and understood. The only thing they ask is that you look, but do not read. In the vulnerable words of poet Olave Nduwanje, “I rather you would just look. Just look! Bear witness, don’t claim me! Pick a place beside me, and let me do the seeing.”

Promotional text by Sara Jajou.
Exhibition documentation including opening night.

Catalogue design by Sara Jajou. Digital copy.