Yusuf is committed to social justice and has worked in leadership roles in the Arts as well as for international non-government organisations across social housing, social support and Emergency Relief. He was the Visual Arts and Community Engagement Lead at Nexus Arts and is a former Artistic Director at Next wave Festival.
Yusuf’s work integrates photography, video, painting and architectural approaches to sculptural form. His research focuses on migrant narratives, transcultural aesthetics and intersubjectivity in art. His practice-based PhD Curries, Kurtas, & Burqas considers encounters with art that can elicit joy and wonder that incite sincere empathic responses towards difference.
CONTACT
SELECT EXHIBITIONS AND CURATORIAL PROJECTS
Sep 2025 Friend/Free (to love) BUS Projects, Melbourne
Aug 2025 Prosopon The Little Machine
Mar 2025 Other Together Sawtooth ARI, Launceston
Mar 2024 Nothing that exists excites me… The Little Machine
June 2023 Willful Subjects Nexus Arts, Adelaide
Mar 2023 play Nexus Arts, Adelaide
Mar 2022 Curries, Kurtas & Burqas SASA Gallery
Aug 2021 Emplacement Yarta Purtli, Port Augusta
Sep 2020 If the future is to be worth anything ACE Open
Aug 2020 Exit West, FELT Exchange FELT Space (online)
July 2020 On Being an Artist: 11 Actions Praxis Artspace
Jan 2019 Commons ArtPod, Adelaide
Nov 2018 Insan(e) Nexus Multicultural Arts, Adl
Sep 2018 FLOW (Shimmer Photo Biennale) Hardys Tintara, SA
June 2018 Mostra British School at Rome, Italy
June 2018 Spazi Aperti Academia Di Romania, Rome
May 2018 HATCHED PICA, Perth
Apr 2011 Yusuf & the Punjab Lions ABC Radio National
PRESENTATIONS / PUBLICATION
Creative Spaces: National Public Galleries Summit 2023. Keynote presentation.
Common Cultures. Invited speaker for discussion on care and culture at ACEOpen, 2022
Unsettling migrant-hood: contemporary art, communitas and postmigrant perspectives. CSAA: Cultural Transformations, University of Queensland, 2019
Beneath the crescent moon: curatorial dilemmas in the Islamic Art display at the Art Gallery of South Australia. CSAA: Cultural Transformations, University of Queensland, 2019.
Enduring settler colonial narratives: interdisciplinary approaches to cultural curation. Conference paper. ACUADS: Engagement, University of Melbourne, 2019
Domesticating settler colonisation at the Art Gallery of South Australia”. Journal of Asia Pacific Pop Cultures, 2019
(Imagi)Nation. Fineprint magazine.
Entangled Cultural Fields: intersubjectivity and contemporary art of the Islamic diaspora. Conference paper. ACS: Crossroads in Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, 2016