Promoting love, tolerance through art

The event featured visual as well as performing arts.

ISLAMABAD:

Art can be effective in highlighting and combating intolerance in the society.

This was the message on display at the Virsa Museum on Saturday, where young artists exhibited the artwork they had created during a week-long workshop.

The workshop, “Face Off 2,” was organised by the Hunerkada College of Visual and Performing Arts with the support of the US embassy. It was attended by around 300 students belonging to different art institutions of Rawalpindi and Islamabad as well as artists from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Afghanistan. Intolerance was the central theme of the project.

Through paintings, sculptures, photographs, caricatures and miniatures, the young artists showed how they viewed the presence of intolerance in society.

A series of four paintings showed drones circling over buildings against a light blue sky, while a centrepiece mural depicted a musician in chains. Tucked in a corner between these two, a 12x8 feet collage enforced a message of hope. The collage, formed by combining several one-square-foot canvases, showed a dove - the universal symbol of peace. According to Raza Shah, a trainer at the workshop, it was prepared by 20 students.

“The workshop was a great platform to polish my skills and the instructors helped me to think on a broader scale,” said Zuha Afzal, a student at Rawalpindi Institute of Art and Design.

Afzal’s painting showed a stack of currency and humans balancing each other in a scale supported by an AK-47, with the US flag in the background. A green apple representing Pakistan perched carelessly on top of the scale. She said this was her commentary on regional politics and the War on Terror.

Besides visual art, the performing art skills which the participants had acquired were also showcased at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA).

The event began with the PNCA dance group, which performed to a narration of the evolution of dance. With the audience clapping and hooting, the group showed how dance evolved as time and people changed in the Indus Valley.

The vibrant dance performances were followed by a singing segment, during which students of Hunerkada sang “Let there be love” and “Geet” backed by flute, piano and tabla. One of the skits, “Daikh Tamasha Daikh”, highlighted the issue of suicide bombing, showing a leader who indoctrinates young boys to create sectarian violence.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2012.