Pilgrimage of a Hajjanaut

Shireen Taweel will present Pilgrimage of the Hajjanaut, her current research based project documenting the sacred experience undertaken by a Muslim Arab Woman of diaspora in Space. The project is a futuring of the Hajj pilgrimage off earth charting the dark sky by implementing Islamic heritage practices of astronomy and celestial navigation. Reimagining the astronaut as a sacred architect of future-oriented ritual practices, politics, faith and science, the Hajjanaut challenges stereotypes and agency of the female body.

Shireen Taweel‘s practice draws on speculative futurisms and alternative histories as a means to decolonise future cultural, political, and ethical dimensions of Space migration. Taweel focuses on the construction of future transcendental architecture and movement ecology informed by the Arabic sciences contribution of astronomy and celestial navigation instruments to the past and future of migration and pilgrimage. Taweel's development and research is often site-specific working in collaboration with local communities, architecture and environment experimenting with the materiality of site. Conceptual applications of artisan techniques and speculative narrative drives cross-cultural discourse and dialogues of shared histories and fluid community identities.

Taweel graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2015 at the School For Creative Arts Hobart, and completed a Graduate Diploma of Fine Arts in Sculpture in 2016 at The National Art School, Sydney. She is currently undertaking a PhD candidature at the University of New South Wales, inquiring into how speculative fiction narratives of Muslim women can contribute to the decolonising of future migration into space.

In 2024 Taweel was awarded the 68th Blake Art Prize for Shoe Bathers (2022). The work looks at the act of bathing and the transitions and transformations which often take place during the ritualised phenomena of spirit, community and family communion within the hammam.

Taweel's works have been widely exhibited in notable institutions throughout Australia, Lebanon and Germany. Shireen Taweel was Dunedin Public Art Gallery's International Visiting Artist for 2024, resulting in a solo exhibition 5364 nocturne and Cosmographic, Artspace, Sydney (2024). Recent group shows include TarraWarra Biennial: We Are Eagles at TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria (2025); In the Inner Bark of Trees at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (2023); this language that is every stone, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Asad Raza, and Warraba Weatherall (2022); Making Worlds, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2022).

This event will be live at the Dechaineux Lecture Theatre on the Hunter Street Campus and streamed live to the Rory Spence LT, Inveresk Campus. If you are unable to attend in person please joins us via zoom: meeting ID: 816 8608 0355

Image credits: Shireen Taweel in her studio (2025), image taken by Garry Trihn