Sadia Sadia


Sadia Sadia PhD FRSA is a Canadian-born British installation artist, known for her audiovisual media work, incorporating sound and images, both still and moving. She is also an award-winning record producer and songwriter.
Sadia began her career by becoming one of the first women in the world to be signed to a major label as a record producer.

Career

1978 – 1993

Sadia worked largely with the Canadian guitar player David Wilcox, producing the albums Out of the Woods, My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble, Bad Reputation, Breakfast at the Circus, and The Natural Edge, many of which achieved gold or platinum status. She also co-wrote many of the titles on these albums.

1993 – present

Sadia is a founding member of the multimedia world fusion project Equa with Stephen W. Tayler. Signed to Polygram in 1996, producing the eponymously titled ARIA nominated album 'EQUA' in the same year.
The Sydney Dance Company has two works in their permanent repertoire, 'Unwitting Sight' and 'Cradle Song' choreographed by Wakako Asano to music by Equa.
In 1996, Sadia also worked on the TUC 'Respect:Unite Against Racism' campaign, producing the single 'Respect' featuring dozens of international recording artists. The project received a commendation from the House of Commons through the passage of an Early Day Motion. Her work has been widely sequenced to films and television programmes by companies such as Polygram/Miramax, Interscope, and Universal Pictures, among others.

Film and installations

Sadia produced, edited, and scored the short film The Noon Gun. Based on footage originally shot in Afghanistan in 1971, and with the support of the British Council, The Noon Gun was shortlisted for the Satyajit Ray Foundation short film competition and has been featured in film festivals worldwide.
As a filmmaker, Sadia has also produced and edited the short 'The End of the Party: Hyde Park 1969', a view of the 60's based on previously unseen footage of the famous first performance by Blind Faith in Hyde Park; produced and edited 'Iggy the Eskimo Girl', a short featuring Syd Barrett's girlfriend Iggy, ubiquitously and affectionately known in the 1960s as 'Iggy the Eskimo girl'; and directed, produced and edited the film 'Lit From Within: The Film and Glass Works of Anthony Stern', a short documentary by Sadia about the filmmaker and glass artist Anthony Stern, which explores some of Anthony's life and works, and examines the aesthetic and philosophical relationship between glass and film as materials through which light passes. She also worked as director, editor, producer and sound designer on 'San Francisco Redux No. 1', the first installment of a multi-channel installation work. The latter films had their world premiere as part of the curated programme 'Le Cinema D'Avant-Garde' at Cinémathèque Française in Paris, France, on June 27, 2008.
Sadia is also the creator of the single channel video installation 'The Memory of Water ' which was acquired by Australian Centre for the Moving Image to form part of its permanent collection of exemplary works by Australian and international artists. It featured in the exhibition 'Proof: The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes'.
In 2009, Sadia was awarded a Studio 18 artists' residency, for international "contemporary visual artists pursuing an innovative practice in a professional capacity", at Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne, Australia. This also marked the first public view of her 2009 installation work 'Noise/Ghosts of Noise'.
During this time she commenced work on her filmed multi-channel installation, 'Metamorphoses in 'A' Minor, filmed at the Kennedy Miller Mitchell motion capture soundstage at Sydney Gate in Sydney, Australia, with the support of Gertrude Contemporary and a British Council Project Grant. The work takes place over three ‘movements’ or ‘chapters’, 'Formation', 'Emergence' and 'Flight' and features the Australian dancer and choreographer Wakako Asano. It is set to an original neo-classical composition produced in collaboration with the UK composer and sound artist Stephen W. Tayler, using recorded layers and repetitive themes that build sequentially until an eventual moment of release. It is a work in the tradition of symbolic mysticism, an exploration of the transformative nature of the individual.
Since January 2013 Sadia has been based out of Real World Studios.
In January 2014, Sadia completed ‘All Time and Space Fold into the Infinite Present ’ a large-scale three channel filmed installation with an accompanying eight channel soundfield. The work features footage of the rapids captured by the artist in Cataract Gorge, Launceston, Tasmania. The footage has been slowed down and colour balanced to resemble deep space, while the motion remains that of the water. This produces a meditative work that draws together the artist’s ideas about time, space, and the land. The accompanying eight channel soundfield is constructed of audio captured by the artist in the Gorge.
The work premiered at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery Inveresk, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia’s largest regional museum, on January 10, 2014 and ran through March 2, 2014. It has since been acquired by the museum for their permanent collection.
In September 2014, Sadia premiered her 30-channel audio installation ‘Notes To An Unknown Lover’ at Spinnerei Rundgang in Leipzig, Germany. She also premiered her installation ‘Fugue: Die Wende’ at Halle 14 Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst as part of part of the City of Leipzig’s 'Lichtfest 2014 Kulturparcours’.
In June 2015, ‘Ghosts of Noise’ was screened and discussed as part of the international colloquium ‘Les Devenirs Artistiques de L’Information’ at Sorbonne Paris, co-sponsored by Le Bauhaus-Universität Weimar & Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie, the Birmingham Center for Media and Cultural Research, and ELICO Equipe de recherche de Lyon.

Books

On 26 June 2013 Sadia's first book 'Notes To An Unknown Lover' was released by Bybrook Press. It is held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University.