Lahore and Chandigarh: Photographs document tale of two cities

200 pictures by British artist on display at Alhamra Art Gallery.

LAHORE:

About 200 photographs displayed at the Alhamra Art Gallery by UK-based artist William Titley focus on histories of Lahore and Chandigarh. The traveling exhibit, presented in an installation form, went on display on January 22 and will continue till January 30.

The pictures, showing parts of Chandigarh and Lahore’s areas around The Mall, the Walled City, the Fort and the Minar-i-Pakistan narrate the history of the two cities and highlight the parallel.

The display also has excerpts from Titley’s personal diary from the days when he was photographing the two cities about two years ago. Amina El-Edroos, a final-year Fine Arts student at the Beaconhouse National University, who attended a workshop given by Titley at the University of Central Lancashire along with two other BNU students, curated the show in Lahore.

The students attended the week-long exchange programme Inspire arranged by the British Council for art students from the BNU and the University of Central Lancashire in England in September 2012.

El-Edroos said Titley had then asked the three to curate a show for him in Lahore. She said he was planning to display his works at the Dubai Art Fair next, and then again in England. The works were displayed in Britain in September; in Houston and Texas in the United States in October and then in India in November 2012, she said.

There are many places in England with large populations of Indians and Pakistanis. More people would be interested in seeing the works there, said El-Edroos. She said her classmates Mohammad Ghulam and Tayyab Tariq had helped her in curating the show.

The works have been catalogued in “In between Lines – Lahore and Chandigarh”. They can be purchased from Amazon.com.

Risham Syed, a former Abraaj prize winner who also attended the sessions in England with her BNU colleagues, said in some pictures, it was really hard to make out where they had been taken. She said it was an open-ended narrative, leaving it to the viewers to interpret it, she said.

Amina, an NCA student visiting the exhibition, remarked: “The similarities in the architecture, the collaging of photographs and the black and white photography are suggestion.” Tanya Suhail, the Alhamra Art Gallery curator, said Titley could not come to the exhibit due to other commitments. She said the show was a success.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th, 2013.