Abbas Ali Khan’s Clown Town: Why so serious?

Abbas Ali Khan’s Clown Town initiative will feature several activities related to clowns and the circus culture.

ISLAMABAD:

Bringing out unique shades of personalities, Singer Abbas Ali Khan’s Clown Town campaign gains popularity amongst Pakistani celebrities. A total of eight Pakistani celebrities masked as clowns experiment with their looks attracting many to join the bandwagon.

When Muneeb Nawaz, Farhad Humayun, Ali Safina, Hira Tareen, Maha Ali Kazmi, Zoe Viccaji , Zara Tareen and Sohail Javed concealed their faces behind layers of make-up, they recieved attention on social media, inviting several other celebrities to do the same.

The idea came into being when a clown was used for one of Khan’s music video “Sun Re” which gained immense popularity. However due to budget constraints, the video clipping could not express as much as Khan wanted, so the Clown Town is an extension of that, he explained.



Speaking to The Express Tribune, Khan said that the purpose of Clown Town is not to make people look bad or ugly, just to express the individuality and uniqueness of one’s personality.

“Everyone has a clown in them, be it dark, funny or sad, we are giving it a visual representation,” said Khan. “Those who have worked with us so far have brought their own unique personality to the shoot and were delighted to see a clown representation of their personality,” he said.

For Khan, clowns are artists, they are sensitive people, they make people laugh but under that makeup and costume they are normal people just like anyone else and that’s what is so admirable about them.

Khan initially kicked off the plan two years ago with his sister Rubab Tanzil. Due to Tanzil’s relocation to UAE, they had to abandon the project. Two months ago,Khan resumed the project once again with bigger plans.



The initiative is not a social statement or a campaign; under the Clown Town banner, Khan plans to do several activities related to clowns and the circus culture. For now, it’s a photography series that will eventually be complied as a coffee table book and displayed at exhibitions. Apart from that, Clown Town is also offering services for custom clown character development to companies and individuals to create mascots or larger campaigns.

Zara Tareen and Rubab Tanzil did the makeup and styling for the project and the real challenge for the team was to keep the character development in mind while simultaneously creating the perfect white base and pointy tear drops. Khan captured the moments in dark but delightful images through his own photography whereas Qasim Badshah and Hassan Naeem provided their studio facilities.

Khan aspires for everyone to be a part of Clown Town. He said that several celebrity friends were not comfortable with the idea of getting a clown makeover due to Coulrophibia — the fear of clowns, but then again there are many artists who are agreeing to be a part of the shoots.

Haroon of Awaz, Overload, Siege the band, Gohar Rasheed, Suhaee Abroo and few others are also expected to be a part of Clown Town. “We are in a process of contacting our celeb friends and most of them are saying yes to it,” Khan said.

In a short time span Clown Town has gained popularity on social media, encouraging several people internationally to become a part of the project.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2014.

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