Kinetic sculptor brings Sindh’s culture to life

KARACHI:

The Sindh government has a department of culture where dozens of people, from minister, secretary, additional secretaries, all the way down to section officers, office assistants and peons, are employed to preserve and promote the culture of the province.

These officers, ranking from Grade one to 21, draw salaries, allowances, budget, and use resources from the taxpayers’ money. On the other hand, a lone crusader has been promoting the Sindhi culture free of charge for over three decades.

Abdul Karim Solangi is considered a pioneer of kinetic sculptures in the country. His motorised sculptures, made of recycled fabric, wastepaper, and plaster, move in a synchronised manner to depict village life of Sindh.

A Presidential Pride of Performance Award winner, Solangi is mentioned in the award’s commendation letter as the person who introduced kinetic sculpture art in Pakistan. His art is on display at the Karachi International Container Terminal, Port Qasim Terminal and Hubco Power Plant.

Besides, he has showcased his art at local and international exhibitions held at the Karachi Expo Centre and the Pakistan Arts Council as well. The 78-year-old retiree from the Sindh education department can be found sitting outside his one-room City Museum in Lyari’s Moosa Lane, where he both lives and works.

There are at least 20 artworks showcased in the City Museum displaying people at work, singers and handicraft and visitors require no tickets.

Solangi eagerly explains to the visitors the background and the lore for each kinetic sculpture and shares his experience of roaming the diverse cultural canvas of the province from the tolerant southeast to the turbulent north-west. His family has inherited his passion for art too.

Solangi said his children make models of ships and boats which they sell to buyers in the Middle East and Europe. He claimed that some of these models were used to develop new ships and boats. For Solangi, art was a childhood love.

Growing up in a family that respected its roots and held value to their heritage, he says he inherited a love for Sindhi culture and developed a love for the handicrafts and art as a child.

According to the sculptor, during his time in the education sector, he spent a lot of time in different parts of Sindh and he got to experience the culture of the province.

“You get lots of postings in the public sector. Many people avoid it, some even use connections to stay in the same city for decades. But I liked going from place to place,” he said.

Solangi said he decided to use his art to pass on Sindh’s culture to new generations and to create works of art that no one else has created before.

The kinetic sculptor said he made his first project of moving statues in 1985 depicting a blacksmith and his apprentice hammering out a red hot iron bar in front of a furnace.

“No, there was no Youtube channel to give online tutorials back in 1985,” he laughs in reply to a question.

Solangi said that the appreciation and encouragement from family and friends pushed him to create more art. His moving statues of Sufi singer Alan Faqir and popular folk vocalist Jalal Chandio and the iconic Misri Khan with his twin flutes and the alghoza garnered praise from all corners of society.

He also created sculptures to pay homage to Sindh’s craftsmen, including carpenters and potters. These moving statues depict the rural life of Sindh, where women are seen doing housework and men are seen sitting in the public lounge or autaq.

According to Solangi, he built these kinetic sculptures investing little money but hours upon hours of painstaking labour.

“Most things I used to create these sculptures are old and used items, you can also call it recycling,” he quipped about his work.

The most important part of the moving sculptures is the mechanism that keeps the body parts of the statues, face, arms, legs and neck moving in a rhythm, he added. This mechanism consists of a motor and gears.

After the mechanism of the sculptures is prepared, the sculpture is made, painted and fabricated. It uses mostly used fabrics, waste pieces of plastic and wood.

“When mothers show their children these moving statues and tell them that in our time flour was grinded like this or lassi was made like this, I feel that I have fulfilled the purpose of my art,” he said.

However, these works are not for sale, Soalngi added. “People offer to buy my work, but I excuse myself saying that these sculptures are more like a public service message for the new generation. If I sell these works of art, they will become decorative pieces in drawing rooms and will be out of reach of the people.”

He wishes, however, for patronage by the government. Many young people ask me to expand my place to take in more students, “but I don’t have the resources to afford a bigger place,” he said expressing hope that the Sindh government should provide a place to continue his work of promoting the local culture.

Solangi believes that art should have commercial value too to sustain the artist.

In a recent post on his Facebook page he gave a spin to Allama Iqbal’s famous couplet written around the Chinese revolution, which says that burn every stalk of the wheat field that does not feed the tiller [Jiss khet sey dehqan ko muayssar na ho rozi, uss khet ke hur khosha-e-gandum ko jala do.]

According to Solangi, “Jiss fun sey funkaar to muyassar na ho rozi, iss funkaar kay baikar funparoon ko jala do [burn the useless art pieces that do not provide a livelihood to the artist]. This story is part of a weekly series that seeks to bring to light the unsung heroes of Karachi - the hawkers, traders, doctors, teachers, engineers, lawyers and daily-wage labourers. It is they who make Karachi the city of lights.