Out-of-the-box: Radical artworks move audiences

Contemporary artists use their bodies as media to engage audience

ISLAMABAD: A first-of-its-kind performance and video-based art exhibition opened up at the Satrang Gallery on Friday.

“A string quartet” features artworks by young artists Shanza Elahi, Natasha Jozi, Nida Ramzan and Umme Farwa Hassan Rizvi.

“It is said all great art comes from a sense of outrage,” said Asma Rashid Khan, the gallery’s director, before opening the show. “One of the arts’ primary aims is to act as an agent of social change. It should not only appease, but also make one question the prevalent order,” she added.



Interestingly, instead of canvases or other stationary surfaces, these contemporary artists use their bodies as the media to engage the audience in an out-of-the-box way.

“The artists portray the dichotomy of existence with taciturn performances, both live and on screen, that implore you to listen and move you to feel them, resonate as they engage in a display of restraint and release of inhibition,” said Zahra Khan, the gallery’s curator.

Elahi’s artworks depict the idea of self-censorship in society.”The whole point was primal instinct. My work is about the sense of restraint that we feel, when we want to do something. I like to think of it is as the (Freudian concept) ‘Id, versus the super-ego’,” said the artist, elaborating on her work.



In Instinct, for example, two anonymous, cloaked figures try to touch each other. They never quite succeed and the shy, exploratory and comically awkward movement that ensues is poignantly reminiscent of a meeting between two hesitant lovers.

She said that though it was based on a different theme, but her artwork was somewhat inspired by “Two lovers”, a painting by Rene Magritte, where two people wrapped in white cloth, are trying to kiss each other.

Through her provocative art pieces, Rizvi explores the idea of vulnerability. “As an artist, I was looking at the connection between nudity and art. When you are naked or exposed, that is when you are the most vulnerable,” she said.

Using a water melon as a symbol, she depicts how when one removes the hard exterior, the interior is soft, vulnerable and exposed. “Being artists, that is what we do every day. Every work we make is about being out there in the world and any artwork comes from what you have to express,” she added.

Jozi’s artworks are more interactive as she explores the enormous power of a gentle caress in her participatory pieces. By incorporating her audience into her artwork, she exemplifies the gift of human touch, transferring energy to various pressure points of their bodies. The artist is interested in recording their candid reactions as independent entities, free of societal bounds and constraints.

Ramzan traces a woman’s attempts to redefine how she is perceived, by creating a personal, independent standard of beauty and fashion, viewable through protective layers and screens. “My series of work focuses on the female body and its relationships with different elements and everyday objects within various spaces and environments,” said the artist, adding that she decided to address the illusions and realities that exist for women faced with this fact of contemporary culture.

“I’m big on video art so I love it,” said Mona, a guest. “But I’m also curious, as an observer, how men are interacting with this show as it’s clearly set on gender binaries. For me, it was very invasive since it’s exactly how you feel on streets sometimes unfortunately, as a woman in Pakistan. For a society like ours, this show is very radical,” she added.

Former principal of the National College of the Arts, Lahore Nazish Attaullah was the chief guest while Swiss and the Bosnian ambassadors were also present at the exhibition.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2015.