Seated inside the sensorily-encompassing exhibition by Justine Youssef, Somewhat Eternal, Diner Club brings together contemporary artists with the very best chefs, restaurants, wineries and breweries of South Australia to host a once-off dinner service curated specifically to the themes and ideas behind the exhibition.

This special edition of Diner Club offers a dining experience like no other. Muine Kamleh, known for his authentic, vibrant flavours, will curate a feast that draws on his Syrian heritage, blending tradition with the richness of the exhibition's themes.

Diner Club sponsors Festival Hire and Studio Botanic will help transform the gallery space into a unique dining experience. The drinks menu features the great wines of ACE sponsor, Alpha Box and Dice.

About the exhibition:
Justine Youssef’s Somewhat Eternal is a multi-sensory installation, encompassing video, textiles, text, scent.

Justine Youssef’s auto-ethnographic films and installations explore the impacts of displacement and prompt us to consider our complicity in creating it. Relationships to land and the endurance of rituals and beliefs are key ideas for the Darug/Sydney-based artist.

Somewhat Eternal is a multi-sensory installation, encompassing video, textiles, text, scent. The central work—a three-channel video shot in Lebanon—shows the artist’s aunt performing R’sasa, or molybdomancy, a traditional alchemic practice of clearing the evil eye. For generations, the artist’s family have used their knowledge of the local mountains and ecology to survive famine and military occupation and to heal everyday ailments and misfortunes.

From 1982 to 2000, parts of Lebanon were under Israeli occupation, and the lead used in R’sasa is often extracted from bullets still found in the region. Through this material connection, Youssef asks us to consider colonisation as a curse that inhabits and influences social and cultural life.

Throughout the installation, embroidered textiles are scented with plant hydrosols—aromatic waters produced by steam distillation of plants—using a process the artist inherited matrilineally. Here, Youssef has substituted commonly used plants with blessed milk thistle, burnet rose, damask rose, and Lebanese cedar, chosen for their complex relationships to land subjugation, occupation, and renewal.

Somewhat Eternal expands from familial narratives to consider broader social and political currents, revealing the connections between human displacement and ecology. Within these acts of ritual and preservation, now fragmented and altered across geographies, lies a belief in the alternatives they offer us.

Curated by Stella Rosa McDonald, Tulleah Pearce and Patrice Sharkey.

About the artist:

Justine Youssef is a Darug/Sydney-based artist whose work uncovers links between family ritual, superstition, ecology, displacement, and settler relationships to land through scent, performance, video, and installation. Her work has been exhibited in the 2022 Hawai’i Triennale, and at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney (2022) and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2021). She was the 2019 recipient of the Copyright Agency’s John Fries Award.

About the chef

Muine Kamleh first brought the flavours of his Syrian heritage to London, cooking the food he grew up with when he couldn’t find it anywhere else. After moving to Australia, he opened Beirut at Night on Hindley Street in the 1980s, one of Adelaide’s first Lebanese restaurants, known for its vibrant, authentic dishes. Muine continues to share his love of food through special events, sharing his beloved family recipes.

Thank you to our sponsors

Diner Club is made possible with the generosity of excellent people and businesses. A sincere thank you to Mark Kamleh, Anton Andreacchio, Mia Gambranis, Muine Kamleh, Shane Pope of Festival Hire, Dylan Fairweather of Alpha Box & Dice and Nadia Travaglini of Studio Botanic.

Groups

If you are purchasing tickets as a group, please email through the guests you would like to be sat with to: marketing@ace.gallery

Dietary requirements

If you have dietary requirements, please select this at checkout and note your requirements.