Eternal change: Faseeh Saleem questions gender stereotyping in latest work

Exhibition at 39-K to continue till March 21.

LAHORE: My work questions the human nature of looking at things, artist Faseeh Saleem said on Sunday. His latest work is on display at Gallery 39K, Model Town.

The exhibition titled Who Are You? will continue till March 21.

The projected images show human figures draped in a cloth. The body of the figure cannot be seen clearly. It seems that the figure is struggling to get out. “In the work, he seems to have trapped his own body in the material. The encapsulated form moves within that confined space, making the images look stunning,” says Abdullah Qureshi, curator and owner of the gallery.

For Qureshi, the draped and confined figure represents a male form - a comment on the lack of conversation on the stereotyped roles of men. “Feminist thought questions the existence of such stereotypes for women, but there is very little conversation on the issue in relation to men,” he says.

Saleem graduated from Beaconhouse National University in 2007 with a BA in textile design. He later did an MFA in Fashion and Textile Design from The Swedish School of Textiles.

He has created the thin, shiny silver net-like material, used in the installation pieces himself. He says he chose to study at the Swedish school because they had all the industrial machines on campus. “That is where I started experimenting with sculptures made from various forms of knitting,” he says.

“The title of the exhibition is not only a question for the audience but for me as well. It questions the constructs of identity on the basis of nationality, gender or locality,” he says.

His installation titled Secret of the Unborn shows sac-like shapes made out of the shiny net-like material.

“It looks at the development and the gender stereotyping that takes place after the child is born. A child’s personality starts developing in the womb,” he says.



In the photographs on display, the artist is seen entrapped in the same material, which looks more fluid in the pictures. “I began questioning my own identity when studying in Sweden. How you define yourself and introduce yourself to other people changes abroad,” he says.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2015.