The Prophet

Born in 1965 in Tripoli, Khaled Sabsabi left Lebanon with his family, migrating to Australia in 1978 to escape the civil war in Lebanon. Sabsabi completed his Master of Arts from UNSW and started his creative practice in the late 1980’s, both as a performer and as a youth worker. In his work, he used his knowledge and passion for the arts to help young people coming from Arabic, Aboriginal and Pacific Islander backgrounds. From these earliest endeavours, Sabsabi’s work showed a strong interest in social justice, as he aimed at empowering marginalised individuals to counteract racism and Islamophobia. Khaled describes his work, The Prophet, as a contemporary artistic interpretation inspired by small Islamic paper paintings that are dated back over millennia. The craft more commonly known as miniatures was used in manuscripts to tell sacred stories relating to the life of the Prophet Muhammad s. These works revisit and affirm the importance of holding and sharing spiritual stories in this time and space.