Of Utopias and Dystopias
The degree show of the NCA is undoubtedly one of the biggest annual events of this region, showing some of the best works produced by students coming from myriad backgrounds -- tangible and intangible
By Naeem Safi.
Like the year before, the 2008 Degree Show was held at the main campus of the college and at the relatively new venue, the Old Tollington Market, which originally was the Punjab Exhibition Hall and has been restored to the Heritage Museum a few years back.
In most of Pakistan, a beautiful weather does not necessarily bring smiles on the faces of those who love to walk. The Mall was filled with knee-deep water and the visitors had no choice but to either use their vehicles or wait on either of the venues. It was made worse by the constant power failure, when the spectators could neither go out nor watch the display.The museum space was dedicated to the disciplines of communication design and textile design. A common theme among the communication design works was that very few were up for selling any product, and even those who were, had picked the products with some sense of belonging to the land. One thesis, I'm Not for Sale!, went as far as completely rejecting advertisement and branding, which is a full U-turn for a use of the discipline that was envisioned by Freud's nephew Edward Barnes at the first half of the twentieth century to create artificial need for products that people do not need. Similarly, most of the works were dominated by challenging issues like national identity, environment, rights, and responsibilities. The final output clearly showed a lot of gray matter being utilised behind the fabulous works produced by the young designers and the much improved teaching standard.
The textile section showed some pretty pieces and work but was not offering much that one could muse one's mind with. The attempts of stretching textile design over the domains of something that borders abstract expressionism and pop art, or the literal interpretation of the psychedelic is not likely to help this pragmatic discipline, even on the pretexts like search of the original thought.
Ceramics of Halyma Athar were meant to be seen in motion in a claymation. The fusion of genres in this particular instance was among the best in this degree show. Her eye for details and the colours achieved through glazing creates a beautiful dream landscape. Fahad Alam's fusion is not of the genres but of different glazing -- like raku, resist firing, and different smoke techniques -- with that of calligraphy from the architecture of Aybak's times. The pottery and murals produced in the process are stunning.
The works shown by the students of the department of fine arts (according to their catalogue, 'the art making' department) was as varied as ever, offering some really insightful works along with the usual. As the global village is dominated by fear and misery, the work of the students responded accordingly by depicting wars and suffering. Where their fellow students from architecture department were trying to design structures for utopia, they were showing the disturbing yet true face of the dystopia they are forced to dwell in.Starting from miniature, where needle and scissor was present as always and the scale of the wasli ever expanding, the selection of themes and mediums show a much liberated class of future miniature painters clearly showing some major transformations in the primal practice. Replacing dots with more than ten thousand miniature terracotta bricks, Noor Ali Chagani moves the miniature of Pakistan into a domain yet to be explored and much contested by the traditionalists. Sajjad Hussain's theme of living in war times is a vivid translation of our times. In one instance, where he is showing a soldier in camouflage enjoying his slumber with his boots on a 'flipped' version of Hafiz's poetry, and a Persian gilim -- small rug used by Persian soldiers in the field -- beside him. The flipped verse under the boots is a very powerful metaphor used by Hussain. All boots are made for walking, but some boots are made for walking over everything. The presence of a machine-gun along with a surahi and wine-cups in the same setting shows the intoxicating quality of unprecedented power enjoyed by the war machines in some of the left-over states of the post-colonial times.
Abdul Ghaffar Afridi's sculptures are the most distressing visual experience, where he had put his installations in a closed space where the very light was black. Coming from an area that is now ruled by terror, his choice was obvious to show the Dark Ages his people are going through now: the power of media in forming the popular views over the untold facts, the people's reliance on the news chosen for them by the media, and the sorry state of affairs that is created by this dependence. One can better understand the feelings of the artists coming from the marginalized lands by Nuruddin Farah's (a Somali novelist) remark that, "To starve is to be of media interest these days." Like Ibrahim Ahmed's attempt to protect the innocence against the brutality that is inflicted on the children of his region. Covering books and writing boards with steel and dolls with body armour are very strong and disturbing images. The conviction with what these sculptures are produced is as unsettling, as the artist says to have enjoyed the pain that he had to face through the cuts and bleeding while handling the material with bare hands. Though the overall theme of the show was very gloomy, these instances show the seriousness of the situation around us.
Imran Mudassar showed the body armour in his drawings, Figurative, from a different perspective. His personal experiences, like his campus being barbed-wired to protect the students from the unseen threat, made him question the very tools that are used for protection. The irony of weapons is that their producers claim to protect some but in fact are used for destroying the others. The sarcastic title, Life Drawing, is of a drawing of human figure on the digital print of a wall in Kabul that is splattered with bullet holes. The most appalling of his works is the video installation, Dinner for Two, in which a video is playing under a transparent container showing the common people from top. The container is 'surrounded' by cutlery with weapons and barbed-wires printed on them. The use of common people as a 'main course' consumed by wars and conflicts is the most appropriate metaphor for these times, yet serving as a fuel for the war lords and the media, hence given the romantic title.
The subject of the academic result, unlike other art exhibitions, is common with every degree show when one interacts with these fresh graduates. The factors influencing and shaping ideas of the young artists at art institutes are somewhat different than the rest of the practicing artists: mainly the need to justify their work to a select audience, the peer pressure, the need to get approval from their teachers and the like. While not undermining the importance of the process that harbours learning and better understanding of the arts, a linear application of it sometimes has adverse effects on the creative individuality. This creative milling produces the individuals who will form the future expression of this region on varied mediums. Gloominess aside, the hope in their eyes and their smiles aspire nothing less than a better future.
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Published in The News on Sunday
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jan2009-weekly/nos-25-01-2009/enc.htm#2
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