Looking towards the east for a muse

“Framing the Local Context” came as a response to the anxieties of many young contemporary artists.

KARACHI: “Framing the Local Context”, which opened at the Poppy Seed gallery on Saturday, came as a response to the anxieties of many young contemporary artists who wish to be recognised on an international platform.

The impetus behind the project was to give participating artists an alternative to western ideals by allowing them to engage with the local intellectual spectrum, said Poppy Seed gallery curator Sumbul Khan.

“It was to suggest that perhaps one of way of countering the pervasive ‘Pakistani Muslim’ stereotype is to look inward for positive inspiration,” she added.

Along with the emerging and mid-career artists participating in the show, namely Danish Raza, Syed Faraz Ali, Salman Hassan and Hajra Haider, renowned artist Meher Afroz was requested to come on board as a mentor artist for this very reason.

Since Afroz’s entire artistic practice has been influenced by local ideals and roots, she was helpful in providing a mediating link between the culture revealed through the texts and the actual process of articulating ideas into images, Khan said.

The artists met for a series of talks between February and May, during which time they were guided into finding points of entry into the local scene through literature, philosophy and language, she added.

The participants were asked to lend an ear to Asif Farrukhi, who read excerpts from the texts of Ismat Chughtai, Noon Meem Rashid and other Urdu writers who had described the regional notion of an artist.

Khurram Shafique keyed in on Iqbal and Waheed Murad to make a case for how art and literature can be non-elitist, public enterprises while Dr Wahab Suri commented on the dangers of getting sucked into the general perception of modern or progressive art.

Rizwanullah Khan highlighted the differences between eastern and western attitudes towards art whereas Ajmal Kamal reflected on the biases embedded in Urdu semantics that are revealed through the process of translation.

Similarly, Dr Fatema Hassan shared her poetry and the challenges faced by female writers.

After spending a summer taking notes and interpreting a series of talks, the artists were able to take to their studios and come up with their individual bodies of work that are up at the current exhibition, “Framing the Local Context”.

The show will continue till September 28.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2010.