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I am a seventh-generation Australian with a direct paternal link to a convict who arrived in this country in 1815. My name is Abdul Abdullah and I am a Muslim. While my father's side of the family has been here for generations, my mother is Malay and as a result I do not look like a typical Aussie. I have trouble identifying with this nationalist marker and prefer to see myself as ethnically ambiguous with no inherent political or cultural standards to adhere to. I am an alien living in a colonial outpost and my struggle for definition seems quite apart from that of my neighbours. The title, Self portrait as King Abdullah of the Greater Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, is a bastardisation of a term that describes Japan's World War II-era ambitions for a new East Asian geo-political order which, however brutal in reality, appeals to my intellectual sensibilities. 'Co-prosperity Sphere' – it sounds nice, doesn't it?
NYSPP 2010
An annual event, the National Youth Self Portrait Prize seeks to encourage young people to embrace self portraiture and its expressive possibilities.
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