Still and moving: Multiple realities merge at Rohtas 2

Aroosa Rana exhibits her first attempt with video and photography.

LAHORE:

An exhibition featuring four videos and six light boxes depicting ‘the concept of multiple realities’ by artist Aroosa Rana opened at the Rohtas 2 Art Gallery on Tuesday evening.

Among the 10 works are two contrasting photos of a street in Cannes, South France, a man looking over a lit-up Times Square in New York City and Rana’s face against a video of a fashion model on runway.

Rana, who teaches at the Beaconhouse National University, said the Cannes piece depicts a contrasting reality. One shows an apartment building and the other a shoe and handbag store, located on the same street. To the artist, the images represent “contradicting pictures, of reality and fiction and hence they become two different realities”.

Ladies in white shalwar qamees sit and stand around a television, watching Superman fly. The women illustrate stillness corresponding to the moving image, says the artist, who has hosted her second solo show since 2004.

Rana, who has previously worked only in mix media, paintings and drawing in five exhibits, says she started experimenting with video and photography during her pregnancy. “I was watching films, experimenting with videos and camera and it was a medium I could work more comfortably with at the time. Painting and drawing require quite a bit of physical effort,” she said.

Most visitors to the gallery admired the works for their “uniqueness of concept”. Artist Quddus Mirza said, “Aroosa has subtly depicted the difference between images and reality. It conveys a dialogue between an onlooker and a subject and also, that in today’s world such a dialogue exists not only among humans, but with gadgets too.”

The pieces will stay on display until March 16. The prices are available at request.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2013.