Khaled Sabsabi “Conference of one's self” Australia, Venice Biennale 2026

Khaled Sabsabi Khaled Sabsabi believes that human beings share the capacity for imagination, a faculty that enables them to transcend their socio-cultural limitations.

These moving images stimulate this creative faculty inherent in each individual, inviting them to rediscover themselves and to accept the imaginations of others that have given rise to cultures and spiritualities different from their own.

“Conference of one’s self” is inspired by the work of the Sufi poet Farid-ad-din Attar entitled “The Conference of the Birds”, in which birds travel through seven valleys in search of a king-guide, the Simorg.

Khaled Sabsabi They conclude their quest by discovering that this king is themselves, in the form of a shared self.

Sabsabi revisits their journey through Sufi mysticism, saying:

“There can be no final goal, no destination or definitive forms. We are processes, circumstances, passages, because everything changes, everything flows, nothing is stable.”

The seven valleys in Farid-ad-din Attar’s 12th-century poem correspond to seven stages of spiritual transformation: quest, love, knowledge, detachment, unity, ecstasy, and annihilation.

Khaled Sabsabi Sabsabi’s work seeks to complement this approach by offering access to an eighth level of balance and wholeness.

“I regard the eighth level as a symbolic stage of transformation that brings viewers closer to their own truths, where questions take on greater value than answers.”