Art: The effects of visa applications

NCA grad Abidi uses photographs and video to examine border crossings.

LAHORE: GreyNoise Art Gallery held a private showing of Bani Abidi’s latest works, Section Yellow, on Saturday. Inspired by the bureaucracy one faces while crossing borders the show includes a 15-minute video followed by a pictures display.

Abidi works primarily with video production and photography.

“Her works often consist of moments from everyday life which she employs to comment on various political and cultural situations that concern her.

The video and photographic works in the show are about people who are going elsewhere,” says Umar Butt, owner of GreyNoise. Abidi, now settled in Dubai, is well aware of the difficulties people from the region face while acquiring visas and immigration.

Her video, The Distance from Here, is a satirical representation of the process. “The work is a glance at the psychological effects that the entire process has on applicants queuing in lines to apply for visas.

Through multiple frames, Abidi comments on the anatomy of preparation, anxiety and patience. The entire video uses migration as a metaphor for coercion,” said Butt.

After graduating from the National College of Arts, Abidi acquired her MA from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999.

Her works have been widely exhibited at Green Cardamom and Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, Lyon in France and Kwanju in South Africa. Currently the same exhibit is also on display at the Baltic Institute of Contemporary Art in Newcastle.

The photographs on display feature various models of communication to highlight class structures and hierarchies that exist in our society. Alongside these is a display of visa files.

“Each element adds to the complex picture of migration and crossing boundaries,” added Butt.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 28^th, 2011.