Written by: Nimra Khan
Posted on: November 01, 2018 | 
| 中文
Tell the wolves I am Home by Marium Agha
Objects have an inextricable quality of acquiring significance beyond their functional purposes, gathering layers of histories, memories, sentiments and experiences and at times becoming extensions of the human psyche itself. With time they can become purveyors of ideas, meaning and thought, affecting change as much as absorbing it. It is fitting then for curator and critic Amra Ali to consider objects as bodies in her latest curatorial project, as they can become vessels for transference and transformation; emotive, alive, changing, interactive. This is the only brief she provides for “Objects We Behold” at AAN Gandhara Art-Space, leaving the rest up to the artists’ fancy.
This “uncurating,” as she calls it, restricts the interference of the curator in the artists’ works themselves, yet her involvement can be felt in the way these works are then interpreted and structured into the show and the ways in which they converse within the space and with the space. The curator remains at once separate from, yet connected and deeply involved with the artist. The show emerges from a series of conversations the curator was having with some of the artists over the years, along with traces of ideas from previous projects that she wished to take forward. Primarily, she responded to the gallery space at Gandhara itself as a body, which allows for each work to become an active part of the whole, rather than sit as an isolated piece.
Ali takes a minimalistic approach to curation, with a rather intelligent use of this space for greater psychological effect. This allows for connections to be drawn between works through their placements within the unique architecture of the space. Each work in a way speaks of the idea of pain and loss, and a sanctuary that provides relief from it. At the same time, the ways in which these found objects have been intervened upon, morphed and transformed, creates contradictions that become a point of unease.
This is evident as one walks through Tazeen Qayyum’s installation “Our Bodies, Our Garden,” where 26 hot water bottles hang in perfect geometry, commemorating stories of pain, loss, endurance and eventual triumph. The artist here revisits an earlier work where 26 women donated their hot water bottles along with memories and stories attached to them, which the artist then interpreted visually through her interventions. An object of relief and comfort, the bottles stand as a sort of memorial, creating a space of tranquility, reflection and remembrance, giving voice to these unnamed narratives from across the world.
Affan Baghpati’s “I try to call you but I can’t find the telephone” creates another tranquil little space that invites the audience to sit and relax on a patch of grass beside a flowing fountain fitted on a telephone settee, but the anatomy of the piece restricts one from doing so. In his typical fashion, the object of antiquity once in use now rendered purposeless through the mechanisms of time, is transformed for aesthetic considerations, reimagined into contextual relevance. Yet, is the re-purposing allowing the object to live on, or is it just creating a dysfunctional hybrid that is nothing more than a lingering ghost of the past, awkwardly struggling for its place in the present?
Baghpati’s primary concern with the nature and history of the object opens the work up to multiple interpretations, making it receptive to dialogue with the space and surrounding works. It is an apt lead up into Marium Agha’s large tapestry, which also takes an antique object and weaves an idyllic landscape of her immediate reality to conceal its colonial baggage. Yet, here again, the tranquility is punctuated by instances of unease, with men with wolf faces and clouds of scraps of meat, even as the entire façade slowly unravels, melting away in one corner. Agha contemplates the nature of love and perhaps loss, our inability to control it and inevitability of being betrayed by it, as even the most serene atmosphere is a farce, hiding looming dangers within.
Ruby Chishti creates a sanctuary as well, the larger than life man’s coat encapsulating childhood memories, dreams and desires and the unfulfilled vestiges of parental love. The personal space this work emerges from is starkly evident in its visual presentation. Highly emotive and visceral, the nature of this work necessitates, and betrays, a personal touch and intense involvement of the artist’s hand. The coat seems to become a catalyst for the resolution of childhood traumas, a protective haven, while its tattered state, and the growths upon it reveal its journey through time, creating a hauntingly beautiful picture.
As one moves further to Adeela Suleman’s chandelier of swords, the curator makes a transition that cuts through the softness of material and organic forms, and offers a stark contrast which works only partially. Suleman’s piece again deals with pain and loss in our age of ongoing violence by rendering unusable a functional object, disarming the violent masculine symbol and creating a weeping willow of limp swords that reverses its purpose. However, while the work holds a narrative connection with the rest of the works in the show, the political nature and broad implications of its concerns, give it a distinct character that does not allow it to sit comfortably with the intensely personal and specific narratives of the rest. This work then seems rather unnecessary in the current context of the show, and its visual and conceptual contrast only serves to offset the emotive quality that the show builds up.
As each object travels between forms and across time, their cultural and historical baggage informs their current interpretation and becomes an integral part of the narrative. These objects then acquire personalities and become bodies connected through ideas and narratives that not only represent past experiences but evolve and grow in a very human way to represent the here and now.
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