Art residency: Repetition stymies ingenuity, says veteran artist

Exhibition featuring over 25 works inaugurated

LAHORE: 24/7—an exhibition featuring work created under the Bin Qullander Artist Residency Programme—commenced on Tuesday at the Saeed Akhtar Studio.

Curator Warda Bokhari said the programme provided emerging artists with a platform in a bid to facilitate the sector evolve. She said chosen artists had lived together and worked on individual ideas under the one-month-long programme. Bokhari said the effort had culminated in 24/7 which features over 25 works.

The curator said the studio had organised the first programme in 2015. She said six graduates had been selected from across Pakistan for the first iteration of the programme. She said seven graduates had been chosen for the 2016 programme.

Bokhari said the programme aimed to provide artists with a platform to develop projects while broadening their horizon and merging the modern and the traditional. The curator said the project was the brainchild of Lahore-based artist Bin Qullander.

She said the programme catered to visual artists, painters, sculptors and digital artists. The artists selected for the 2016 programme include Alina Akbar, Anas Abro, Attiya Javed, Javed Iqbal, Javeria Khan, Zeeshan Hussain and Naureen Ali.

Veteran artist RM Naeem said the programme was a fantastic initiative that ought to be sponsored by the government. “The great talent on display not just helps cultivate a softer national image but also engenders other welcome consequences,” he said.

The artists said there should be more initiatives of this kind as repetition stymied ingenuity.

Attiya Javed, one of the featured artists, said her work was inspired by things that one was unable to possess despite being within one’s reach.  “Sometimes one has to take decisions that bring one to a dead end or lead one to a labyrinth,” she said. Javed—who has four furniture pieces on display—fashioned and installed them in such a way that rendered them useless.

Zeeshan Hussain, another featured artist that he had been inspired by toys. He said toys denoted a particular innocence and warmth. “I first started painting toys which evolved into focusing on the texture of soft toys to create illusions from them,” Hussain said.

Javeria Khan said she had been inspired by the motifs and patterns that the Wazir Khan Mosque features. She said she had used the inspiration to fashion work that glowed in the dark. “I installed the patterns in such a way that they play with the focus of those viewing them,” Khan said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2016.