Interview - Saba Hasan

What vision do nails, words, fabric, leaves, plaster, memories and glue meshed together paint? Gopika Nath interviews abstract artist Saba Hasan, revealing the persona and politics enmeshed in her process.

GOPIKA NATH: A rapid change in India’s economic development has altered the physical and cultural landscape of our cities, but you choose not to dwell on these facets.

SABA HASAN: I am certainly aware of conflict. It doesn’t matter if it’s specific to any place. My interest is the mind, the heart - factors which are there irrespective of the location.

GN: The mind and the heart are located within physical and cultural dimensions, they always have a context.

SH: My material indicates cultural elements. I use everyday materials like jute, rope, plaster, nails or even the Urdu text. When I use a nail as opposed to a colour I am calling your attention to an alternate utterance, carrying the voice of the material itself. The experience of a nail could suggest pain, violence or construction. I love abstraction because I have the freedom to give the viewer the space to interpret my work in their own way.

GN: Who among the abstract painters have inspired you?

SH: Somnath Hore, Mark Rothko and perhaps J. Swaminathan. All three are restrained, they never over-state.

I love Rothko’s obsession with death. When I first saw his work I got goose-bumps. I felt that passage you make from our world into the other mysterious but magnetic world.

Somenath Hore, says so much with so little; reaches such depth with great simplicity and this is something I feel I have achieved.

Swaminathan brings in ordinary elements, using material that is not that different from what I use. It makes his work very powerful.

GN: Your canvasses have a heavy impasto quality using unusual materials. Can you elaborate on this and your choice of materials?

SH: I was painting monuments. The idea was not to paint walls but construct a space for reflection. I began with burning, then using plaster. The logistics of working with plaster led me to cement. I could create cracks. I wanted to bring tension onto the surface. I found some rusty nails – they seemed to have a voice. The different materials are like alphabets. It’s also about how I use them, whether I hammer the nail in or I put one beside the other as if it’s a path taking you somewhere – like when you die you go from one world to another

GN: Could you elaborate on the violence in your gestures as you work?

SH: Initially perhaps there was burning and then slashing of the canvas and then the hammering of nails. But every slash gets stitched - everything gets healed. There is an attempt to heal and find a certain resolution. This is important for me.

I really don’t believe in violence or destructive acts but in the universal Sufi thought sulh-i-kul [peace with all].

It begins with burning, then there is resolution – there is calm – may be its abstractionist– but that does not mean it is art for arts sake. I want to take a position.

GN: Is the process cathartic?

SH: Yes,

GN: Do the elements of violence and protest arise from your being a Muslim and the way the world views this today?

SH: As one of the elements, yes. I am not a believer of any formal religion and I have a split relationship with Islam.

You look at the painting and you think there is a protest, there is conflict, resistance. There are wrongs in this world, I do protest. There is also survival and a sense of calm.

People look at the work and confront deep tragedies or fears and yet they feel the work also lifts them out of that abyss.

GN: How do you deal with a process that is fragmented? [Working on multiple canvasses simultaneously]

SH: Its not as if you have one thought and another – art is my whole life and experience – not that today I am thinking that the wall is crumbling and on the next canvas I think how beautiful the flowers are; because I think about them simultaneously. One canvas has a thousand thoughts and feelings. I distil my entire life’s experiences in my work.

GN: How much time does each canvas take to complete?

SH: 6 months to 2 yrs and a life-time.

GN: Can you explain what you undergo in the process?

SH: I experience complete exhaustion – sometimes I can’t move for days after. I put my entire being into it and get drained. While I’m working my mind is not cluttered with any thoughts – certainly not about a socio-political, objective reality. I do not bother about all that; it’s my heart that’s at work. I only let emotions affect the way I work.

My expression is visceral. It could be a reaction to my mother not being well, a tragedy or some minor disturbance. It’s not that I think about these things, I just let my heart do the work. It’s more about the emotion than the cerebral

GN: The inclusion of Urdu text, you’ve said is “your personal resistance to the global wave which builds upon the cultural image of a backward, narrow minded Muslim jumping into action while wielding weapons of terror”. Are you speaking here as a Muslim?

SH: Urdu is my mother tongue; what I heard as a child and learnt the sound of. I use it for its visual beauty, rich linguistic fibre, nuanced and complex poetry and because it is an Indian language. I use words of contemporary writers, poets, family and friends as reflections of the world as we live it. I provide glimpses from our daily life, concerns of people in Kashmir, Delhi, Bangalore, tribes of Madhya Pradesh, extracts from real conversations, interviews and my letters; all collated to reflect the shared Indian experience, our basic philosophical oneness.

GN: You have said “that Art and life are for me simultaneously about the personal as well as about cultural contact, about experiencing the other.” You are married into a Hindu family, how has your art has been informed by this experience?

SH: My husband and I are not religious people. We don’t practice either of our faiths. We rebelled against tradition long before we got married. Socially however, it is interesting, because during partition, my parents chose to stay in India. They were active participants in the freedom movement. They did not believe in another nation based on religion.

Amit’s father and grandparents were from the North-west frontier. They had to forcibly leave and take refuge in Delhi; they witnessed the real trauma of partition.

When we got married, our families found healing way beyond political divides. This reaffirmed my faith in humanity and the power of love.

GN: In letters from Baton Rouge [2006] you said – “My generation has been long grappling with issues of ego, identity and heterogeneity of cultures” How do you express such issues visually?

SH: I am currently working on a project revolving around the burqa ban in Europe which just deals with the symbol of oppression, not the actual oppression; infringing upon a woman’s right to choose. I find it particularly offensive that for centuries women were coerced to hide behind the veil and today they are being coerced not to wear one. Neither the fundamentalist nor the democratic mind has learned to respect individual choice.

I have however, been most troubled by death, natural or as a result of wars. I am always confronting that point in my work. I wonder if suicide is the ultimate art performance and a grave the ultimate installation.

GN: At the end of your day, after many hours working through a rather intense and rigorous process, what do you feel?

SH: Physically I feel completely exhausted; mentally however, I am usually on a high. I am quite obsessive. The mind can’t stop ticking even after long hours in the studio.

GN: Do you have greater clarity about issues, you started out with?

SH: Clarity comes only when I immerse myself in the work. I don’t believe in thinking the entire project through, but leave room for discoveries while at work.

In addition to the studio hours, I read a lot, discuss ideas, jot my thoughts down, or just play with materials - be it plaster, paper, leaves or even sound.

Living next to the Notre Dame in Paris, I recorded the bells ringing every half hour. I’ve also recorded the ocean waves near my house in Goa and sounds in a grave yard.

GN: You have said that “Ultimately it is only we who can infuse our lives or art with new meaning”. What does art mean to you? What new meaning have you in particular tried to imbue your art with, and how and why?

SH: Art is my experience; a visceral, emotive response to the world in a somewhat dream-state with a sense of timelessness.

Each work is a complex thought construct residing in a universe beyond the palpable. This happens if I immerse myself so deeply, that my art is like meditation. At this point I feel I have successfully communicated the intended.

I depend a lot on accidents and keep an open mind to the outcome. Abstraction is best suited for this freedom and open mindedness. It allows me to deal with the complexity of my intention and frees me to develop my own signs of communication. My viewer too is a participant, in that he is free to interpret this vision with his own twist of experience.

Art is as powerful as the knowledge and instincts of the artist and the mind of the viewer.

An Exercise in Trust [Interview with Tejal Shah re performance at Vadehra Art Gallery, Delh]

As part of a group show at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, Tejal Shah invited participants to take her blind-folded on an hour long walk through the city, as an exercise in Trust. Narrowing the boundaries between art and life, she became the medium, colour and texture; her experience the canvas. ‘Feelings’ became the ‘colours’ of a life-like experience for both artist and participant.

                      

GN: It has been said that ‘Life’ is not something we discover but create in each moment. Is life the ultimate canvas for you?

TS: In some sense, life is the ultimate canvas, but for me nothing is the ultimate medium.

I engage with performance and its potentiality, exploring life-like art. Inspired by Allan Kaprow and John Cage - their thinking about life-like art and art-like art, I began exploring live performance in life-like art – what this means to the viewer and relevance of the viewer to the art, how not to de-contextualize it from life, but to engage in the process of life.

GN: Why do you work through live performance and not painting or installation?

TS: I am interested in it and living in India, the context in which one can make and produce art is limited, largely determined by commerce.

I come from a socially engaged and activist background engaging with issues of marginalization of class, religion, sexuality and gender and I wanted break down the false wall, the invisible curtain that exists between the artist and viewer - to bring myself to the viewer.

GN: Trust is intangible, yet fundamental for harmonious living. What did you hope to achieve by bringing the notion of trust as an ‘aesthetic’ into the gallery space?

TS: Trust is very loaded word. How can I explore some aspect of this through strangers? Contact was the key feature, leading to intimacy and touch, questioning the artists’ relationship with the audience.

I also wanted to work with the duality of trust and mistrust. It is relevant at this point of transition as a human society - of politics, war, colonization and technology.

GN: What does trust signify for you?

TS: There is a kind of fundamental handing over to someone else.

GN: What are the parameters by which you ascertain trust?

TS: I was sound recording the conversations which implied surveillance. Participants were not always aware of this.  I was surprised that people assumed I had completely surrendered.

Sometimes personal things were exchanged - life story experiences, where trust defined how one formed a relationship.

GN: If exploited, the exercise could have been traumatic. Was there any particular participant that tested the threshold of trust?

Tejal with Asim

TS: With Asim on the motor-bike and then also with Mary- with the kind of sharing - such openness, made me feel that there actually was great potentiality for trust between people. I also had sense of care which is related to trust.  

GN: Did anyone display a tendency to exploit the trust?

 TS: There was an artist in Beijing [where I have done this earlier]. San Juan gave me 3 choices and asked me to pick one. He wouldn’t disclose the choices. I really had to just trust, that this person is going to respect – not hurt me.

GN: What was the threshold of tolerance, beyond which you would call for help?

TS: So far I have not come across a situation where I needed to call for help. Dialogue helped as I was always in communication with the participant and could always say ‘yes’ to this and ‘no’ to that. The Gallery had the phone number of each participant and could hear us talk. The only control that I had was to choose to go along or not.

GN: You have done this exercise earlier in Beijing; what was the essential difference between that performance/interaction and this?

TS: In [Beijing] I chose no: 2. San Juan took me to an amusement part with crazy rides. Later, when we’d finished the exercise I asked what choice no: 1 would have been. He said that he would have taken me to the top of a sky skyscraper, made me stand on a parapet for 10 minutes, go down, take a photo and then come collect me.

He had decided that no: 1 would be a very dangerous thing, No: 2 – would feel very dangerous, but still safe [amusement park] and No: 3 –would be something that was not dangerous.

GN: Did this experience change your outlook in any way?

TS: I still think, ‘what if something happened’? Today if someone asks me to do something without telling me what’s happening, even in everyday things like  ‘are you free on this and this day’ my response is: ‘why are you asking, what do you want’?

GN: Your trust has become conditional?

TS: My worry is that someone is putting me in a precarious position where moving by a millimetre could be a question of life and death.

GN: Give some examples of what you and the participants in Delhi did?

TS: At the opening night someone kept asking me to guess what she looked like. She was interested in how people would perceive someone, without knowing what they looked like.

Tejal with Suruchi and Ankit

Suruchi took me to the work of Desire Machine Collective asking me to describe it. We then talked about my performance, whether it is art, not art.

A journalist took me onto the gallery terrace and asked round about questions. I am not sure whether they were meant to be metaphorical or poetic. She said: “there is an arch on a hill, like an old stone arch, its part of a ruin; [pointing me in that direction] what does it signify for me?’ I have been on that terrace many times but did not know if the arch was really there. I had no sense of what was reality and what was not. I just went with the flow.

I was also taken to Tughlaq’s tomb, Qutab minar, Greater Kailash II market [with Mary, where we went to a coffee shop and had coffee]

Tejal with Mary

GN: Were passers-by curious about your being blind-folded?

TS: I kept asking the participants ‘are people looking, how they are looking’? A foreign tourist interacted with us outside Tughlaq’s tomb. And when I was with Amber, some guy asked us in Hindi “What are you doing, what is the meaning of this?”

GN: Were your other senses heightened because you were blindfolded?

TS: Being cut off from the visual world created a dark space – a visual emptiness. It was amazing to lose the visual world and see how calm I felt - no anxiety about being blind-folded; it felt very natural. The sense of temperature was heightened. I could tell when we were going from shadow to sunlight, feel a change in temperature on my skin.

GN: In one recorded conversation you felt that the bike was titling to the left and said “I was scared, but obviously trusted him totally.” Could you elaborate?

TS: I have since re-questioned the idea. The bike felt it had titled, was almost touching the road. I felt desperate and needed to focus on one fixed point. I knew Asim a bit, but didn’t know if he was a safe rider. There was a lot of traffic, the sound was overwhelming. I lost my equilibrium. It was also getting dark and cold. It was not whether I trusted him or not, but a precarious situation.

GN: What specific nuances of trust did you discover through the interactions in Delhi?

Tejal with Mithu Sen

TS: I needed to keep talking. People are open and willing to engage and share, renewing my ability to trust. This is just the beginning.

Mithu was surprised her conversation was being recorded. She saw it as mistrust, making me question myself. The dialogue generated interest in the ethics of what is exchanged.

GN: The notion of trust is abstract, with no visual qualities. How does this come within the purview of the visual arts?

TS: There is something to hear and see and experience. I do not necessarily qualify this performance as visual art. Live art is more than even performance.

GN: We live in troubled times, trust is at a premium. Did the performance give insights that could help address this issue?

TS: Trust was built into the title of work. I am like an optimistic pessimist. I feel we can try and address these things. I have faith. People were willing to participate. It’s only when we engage that we can think about our limits.

GN: As a visual artist what do you experience when you become a performer?  

TS: I felt vulnerable. There was a sense of being exposed and of adventure too.

GN: What did the participants, your co-performers, experience?

TS: People lacked the experience of leading a non-sighted person. Some asked me to walk in front, to lead them and many walked really fast.

Some were vulnerable in the sharing they did.

GN: At the outset, who did you really trust - participants, the gallery, or some other element?

I started with a sense of complete trust in the participants. Ultimately, I do feel that it comes back to one’s self, as collaborative, sharing self.

Chronicles of Loss [Interview with Samar Jodha] Art India

The Bhopal Gas Disaster, disappearing North Eastern tribes, tiger conservation and the afflictions of the elderly are all explored by Samar Singh Jodha in his photographs. He talks to Gopika Nath about what drives him to work on marginalised communities.

Gopika Nath: From advertising and high fashion to the Bhopal Gas Tragedy – how did this shift take place? Was it a prick of the conscience?

Samar Singh Jodha: I could make things look amazing using different techniques of photography. But that wasn’t enough. My father was an economist. Talk around the dining table centred on development, marginalization, food security, drought, and water and wasteland management. We travelled with him to Africa, South America, the Far East and other South Asian countries and so I had early exposure to important social issues. As I watched our society changing, with its new material way of living, its lopsided development, the marginalization of certain communities and the lack of basic amenities, I wanted to talk about it.

In 1993, I worked on a book with Aman Nath called Jaipur: The Last Destination and then on Costumes and Textiles of Royal India with Ritu Kumar. Through these projects I saw another India. In 1994, I started working with Mobile Creches and HelpAge India. The latter led to the work I presented in 1999, namely, Ageless Mind and Spirit: Faces and Voices from the World of India’s Elderly.

G. N.: How does your approach vary from other photographers? Do you make a conscious effort to be different?

S. S. J.: Photography is only a tool. Skill is not the issue. I try to give the viewer an experience that is authentic and as close to what I have been through. In many ways, it is the antithesis of commercial photography where you have one meeting with a client, get your brief, shoot in the next few days, bill the client and your work’s done. There is no process going on in your head.

G. N.: The Ageless project involved a great deal of patient, time-consuming observation over eight years during which you documented the lives of 400 elderly people all over India. Did you get involved in the lives of the people you photographed? Did you investigate their histories?

S. S. J.: My brother and I would spend anything between one to five days explaining to them what I was doing. I took three flights to Calcutta for one portrait of a person living in a joint family because everybody had to be convinced. It had nothing to do with looking through the lens, but respecting the subject’s space.

 

G. N.: You have worked on issues like Save the Tiger, labour exploitation in the Commonwealth Games and the Bhopal Gas Tragedy – all of which are part of our history of national shame. Your installation Bhopal – A Silent Picture (2009) has been criticized for packaging ‘failed activism’ in an attractive way. What has it achieved in terms of addressing the issue?

S. S. J.: Well, in the space of three months this year, the installation has been shown at the India Art Summit in Delhi, at the Kala Ghoda Art Festival in Mumbai and at Art Chennai. No curator or gallery was interested in supporting it. I put my own money into it. An artist puts his work out there because he has something to say.

I first went to Bhopal in 2004 to work on a campaign for BBC that raised awareness about the Bhopal Gas Tragedy 20 years after the disaster. I made countless trips thereafter and kept thinking about how I could bring this issue into the public domain. In 2009, I invited Bittu Sahgal, an environment expert, and two others from an NGO in Bhopal and one survivor to speak at a public forum at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai. I did all this because I believed that people should know about these issues and respond to them.

Independent monitoring has recorded that over 95,000 people walked through the box-installation Bhopal – A Silent Picture. There was nothing to sell in there, it was purely about advocacy. It is not that the installation will make the Supreme Court change its judgement, but it will educate a whole generation of people in this country who have no idea what happened in Bhopal. As a photographer, I am using my medium to show what corporate irresponsibility can do.

 

G. N.: Your portrait of the Tai Phake tribe of Phaneng Village in Upper Assam was a subtle but dark commentary on their impending extinction. The people were the focus of this project. In Bhopal - A Silent Picture, however, you have shown the starkness of an abandoned factory. Were viewers moved by this? And did you manage to make a point about the human loss?

S. S. J.: Shockingly, dozens of people, especially students, had no idea that the Bhopal Gas Tragedy had happened in their own country. Many urban Indians now live like Americans do – a certain section of the young population has started living very insularly. They only know what is happening in their region and nothing beyond. Many said, “Thanks for bringing this here. Can you bring it to our university?” As a photographer, I have used my medium to increase awareness of crucial issues.

 

G. N.: You are not a dispassionate observer. Your documentation of the Burj Khalifa project in Dubai, like your work in Phaneng, involved months of interaction and observation. Do spaces and people interest you differently?

S. S. J.: Human suffering or celebration does come into play when you are capturing an issue or an event. One has to deal with the human condition. But art is not about going into other people’s living rooms. It is about issues that get sidelined. My work is about how a certain consumerist way of life dominates our so-called development or, for that matter, double-digit GDP growth.

My Through The Looking Glass series (1997) was one of the first environmental portraits project which ‘excluded’ humans. The project provided a counterpoint to the various visual depictions of living spaces in India found in glossy magazines and coffee table books that emphasized stylized order and harmony.  One of the things it did was document the now-pervasive presence of television in Indian life.

G. N.: Why did you choose not to show the people of Bhopal when the gas tragedy caused physical abnormalities, transforming them in terrible ways?

 

S. S. J.: I did photograph people. I went to hospitals and found deformed third generation babies. I also worked in communities that live around the plant. These images would have been easy to sell but to me it was important how human dignity was preserved in the portrayals. I wanted the general public to experience a space they would never have access to. The plant has been sealed for the past 27 years. There is still a chemical residue there and snakes too. Hardly anybody’s been there.

G. N.: Presenting the installation in a container used for the transportation of industrial goods is a smart way of accusing corporations of environmental neglect. To go back to a question I raised earlier, does it speak, however, of the enormity of the human tragedy? 

S. S. J.: The ‘Box’ is at an angle and inside, there is total darkness, recreating that midnight in Bhopal when the trains were pulling into the station. People were gasping and running, and they had no idea why they could not breathe. The five photographs inside the box are lenticular images of what they would have seen through the train windows – images of the factory that was the site of the disaster. As you walk through the box you lose your balance. I had thought of covering the box with a satellite image of the factory, but eventually, put only the information about the chemical composition of the gases, the dates of the disaster and the number of the people who died, on it.

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum in New York has a room with just a pile of shoes. When you enter this space something intense happens to you. Instead of the pictures of the dead men and women you have only a heap of their sorry possessions. I believe in art that leaves room for the viewer to engage.

Review of Phaneng:  A Journey Into Personal Engagement
http://gopikanathartviews.blogspot.in/2009/03/journey-into-personal-engagement-samar.html

Anupam Poddar Interview [Devi Art Foundation]

RELATING TO EXHIBITION OF PAKISTANI ART – RESEMBLE REASSEMBLE

 

Saira Waseem

 GN. I was impressed with the disarming honesty and simple intellectualization of ideas presented through this exhibition. Would you say this is true of most artists’ work in Pakistan and what were your criteria for selection?

AP. The criteria for selection were primarily subjective. The collection includes works that move, inspire or challenge me. At the same time, I wouldn’t deny that works of most artists in Pakistan are very honest, both in terms of reflecting their personal history or their underlying meanings.

Imran Ahmad-Khan

GN. Though honest the work may sometimes appear simplistic. In the catalogue, writers have referred frequently to the political upheavals as beleaguered conditions under which the artists work. One therefore surmises that the work is a response linked directly to the prevailing threat which does not allow for much intellectualization.

In India a lot of work has a high intellectual quotient, such as Nalani Malani’s video - Remembering Toba Tek Singh, [shown at Devi Foundation - Still Moving Image] where understanding and appreciating the work requires considerable inquiry and study.

Noor  Ali Chagani

This was not evident in the works on display in this exhibition. For instance Noor Ali Chagani’s ‘Possession’, [2009]  
 

You do have work in this collection which is finessed - Saira’s Wasim’s ‘Nuclear Threat’ [2004], but the work is simplistic by comparison.

Some digital prints by Bharti Kher – ‘Chocolate muffins’, ‘Angel’, and others are designed to provoke. This larger than life concept is not uncommon in India and its absence in this exhibition of Pakistani art, seemingly grounded in the grim reality of their lives, is refreshing.

AP. For starters, I think it’s unfair to set a comparison of any sort between works of Nalini Malani and Noor Ali Chagani (a fresh graduate from the NCA, Lahore).  They are both in different stages of their career. Also, I believe that work comes from a personal expression, it could be political or apolitical, provoking or non-provoking; beauty lies in both.

Although scale is irrelevant to me, I would like to add that the larger than life concept has also been explored by Pakistani artists such as Ayaz Jokhio in his Titled series.

Ayaz Jokhio

GN. We are culturally linked in ways that would be impossible to dismiss, yet the art reflects an ethos that sets us apart. We have centuries of a shared history, so what is the definitive differential evinced through the art?  In your interactions with artists, curators and art educators, what is your perception in this regard?

Bani Abidi

AP. Despite having a shared history, I feel contemporary Pakistani art is more experimental in nature than Indian art. The artists follow their individual pursuits with convictions that are not driven by the market forces or contemporary trends; their personal expressions are highly skilled and insightful. For example, Ehsan ul Haq’s Life is Elsewhere or Unum Babar’s Then both of us were born anew.

Unum Babbar

 GN. The works in the exhibition - ‘Resemble Reassemble’ are indicative of global influences in terms of the media and visual language; however the dialogue appears rather insular. The artists do not engage with issues of global concern but are more involved in speaking of purdah, of relations between men and women in Pakistan, relations with India and other such issues that pertain to life within the subcontinent. 

A.P. I don’t see why in an age of globalisation an artist should be divorced from realities of their society? I think an artist should have the liberty of using new media to express their local realities or regional issues. 
 

Iqra Tanveer

Also, due to political and financial constraints, many Pakistani artists do not get an opportunity to travel which makes their work rooted in local realities which are far closer to them than that of an unseen world.

GN. Some of the artists have spoken of more universal human issues - videos by Ferwa Ibrahim and Huria Khan and while Unum Babbar attempts this in ‘Then both of us were born anew’, one draws a gender inference from the heavily clad woman, rather than a spiritual one, as referred to in the poem by William Cartwright whom she quotes in the title. The same happens with the screen prints of Nazia H Khan, where the distress in the folds of the organza fabric and the imprint of flowing hair evoke tension which the through context of the exhibition is inferred as emanating from terror[ism].

Ferwa Ibrahim

a) Do you think this inference is inevitable?

b)  Is it erroneous?

A.P I think most viewers come to see art from Pakistan with their preconceived notions, which Resemble Reassemble has tried to challenge by primarily shifting the focus to visual thinking and by not creating sections within the exhibition.

Additionally, what might appear to a viewer as addressing gender issues for example, Amber Hammad’s Maryam, holds a special meaning for me. It reminds me of the shift in her artistic practice and how her stature as a person has changed – from the girl who often portrayed fairly tales in her work to Maryam, a mother with responsibilities.

Amber Hammad

I think there is more to the work than ‘terror’. Bani Abidi’s The News, was made during her KHOJ residency. The video explores similarities and differences in language than merely depicting terror.

GN. The scale of works is mostly miniature or if not exactly within that oeuvre, the scale is contained more so than what one sees in India. The smaller scale creates finesse and a sense of delicacy as in Unum Babbar’s video installation on egg-shells or Mohhammad Ali Talpur’s ‘Leeka’ or his Bird drawings, which is in direct contrast to the large scale installations in India. Do you think this potential can and/or should be re-visited by Indian artists, given that we share a tradition in miniatures? 

Ali Talpur

AP. To me, the scale of a work is irrelevant; it is the quality that matters. Miniature or larger than life, it is the content that attracts a viewer. For example Unum Babar’s ‘Not quite sure till afterwards’, could be projected on a pedestal or a wall, the work remains interesting for its content and execution, not scale.

 

Mahreen Murtaza

GN. What do you think of the miniature tradition as re-visualized and presented by the Pakistani painters in this 21^st century?

AP. I find contemporary miniature art from Pakistan very exciting. It challenges its own boundaries and often surprises the viewer with the outcome. 
 

GN. In the context of a global village, do you think traditions that specify an ethnic identity are relevant in the arts?

AP. Absolutely.  

GN. Do you think that we in India should also preserve some of our ancient traditional artistic practices by bringing them into the context of contemporary art?

AP. Yes. Our next show on Indian Folk and Tribal Art will explore this in detail. 

GN. India and Pakistan have had strained relations for the last 60 years. There have been attempts at a dialogue towards peace but the general opinion is that we are working to keep us apart rather than to bring us closer together. There is considerable distrust even as there is bonhomie; do you think that a cultural initiative can aid the dialogue for peace?

AP. Yes without a doubt! In my experience of visiting Pakistan, I have often felt a lot of warmth and friendship. Politics is played between politicians. On an individual level there is a lot of love that spills over.

Aisha Khalid

GN. As a viewer, I was rather touched by some of the work. We don’t really have a connection with Pakistan that pertains to everyday living. When we are affected by terrorist attacks of Pakistani origin etc, it has been convenient to believe the national propaganda, but now Pakistan has begun to have a more humane face. The conditions they live in, as exemplified through the works in this exhibition - the curtailing of freedom, implications of wearing a veil and the fact that death by terror is considered normal is horrendous and in a sense makes one less mistrusting and more compassionate.

Aisha Khalid

 AP. This is the beginning of a journey that we wish continues. I’m happy to know that the exhibition succeeded in marginally changing your vision of Pakistani art. However, this was not the real goal. The aim of the foundation is to set a platform for cutting edge artists; it is not so much region-based but encourages what in our opinion is good art.

GN. What do you think sets apart the art from Pakistan and that which is presently being made in India? What in particular draws your eye as a collector to either?

AP. What draws me towards Pakistani art is that it is honest, fresh, at the same time experimental and challenging.

GN. Do you think we can inform each others' practices through exhibitions, workshops and other means of artist exchange?

AP. Yes. Initiatives such as ‘Aar Paar’ in 1998 proved to be very fruitful in informing the countries of each other’s artistic practices and we hope there are more initiatives in the future.

Ali Talpur

GN. And does The Devi Art Foundation have any plans for this?

AP. The Devi Art Foundation has an education and outreach programme that is designed to work in conjunction with pedagogues and academia to forge a critical space. In the next two months we are planning to organize talks and seminars that will bring together artists and academics from both the countries.

GN. What made you think of adding Pakistani art to your collection? Bani Abidi’s video of the ‘Shan pipe band’, Ehsan Ul-haq’s installations ‘Zero point’ and ‘Life is elsewhere’ do bring into focus some of the similarities both culturally and of issues pertaining to urban development or lack of it. Was this a criterion?

Bani Abidi

AP. I saw images of works which very exciting. These prompted me to visit Pakistan and meet with the artists.

GN.  Do you plan to expand this, to include art from other regions of South Asia?

AP. Yes.

GN. The works in this collection are diverse in media and content, despite the fact that they pertain largely to issues within the Pakistani context. - Hamra Abbas in ‘Please do not Touch…’ uses the English language with a ‘jaali’ that is Islamic; while Bani Abidi’s digital prints – ‘Security barriers A-L’, use icons that are universal and others that use video, installation, surgical instruments etc. The diversity speaks of their creative prowess. Do you think that because people do not readily visit Pakistan curtailing the artistic exchange and dialogue, that this provokes their creativity?

AP. I feel struggle is an important part of our life and at some point, we all go through it. Indian art has gone through it and many Iranian artists are at the present facing it.

Even though Pakistan is not readily visited, I think in the recent years the art has attracted many curators, critics and is being addressed in many international exhibitions – ‘Hanging Fire at the Asia Society’, ‘When Three Dreams Meet’ at the Whitechapel Gallery – this will hopefully improve things.

GN. The works in the exhibition primarily represent the first decade of this century, from 2000 to 2009. Is there a reason that no work predates this? Most of the artists are born after 1970, what is reason for this predisposition towards the younger generation, where most are in their late 20’s or early 30’s and none is beyond 45 years old?
 

Nazia Khan

AP. That is what was prevalent when I started collecting art from Pakistan. I enjoyed the young, new energy of the students and also felt that somebody had to support them financially for them to continue their practice and reassure them of it. However we do have artists of all age groups. Some of the senior artists in the collection include Anwar Saeed, Ruby Chishti and Roohi Ahmed.

GN. Bani Abidi’s video ‘Shan pipe Band’ reminds of the parallels in our cultural make-up. The Star and Spangled Banner may have political implications regarding Pakistan’s particular relationship with America, but the bandwalla is as much a part of our ethos and art, brought into play by Krishen Khanna’s recent retrospective. These are things we know but take for granted, which art re-visits, reminding us of a shared heritage which makes partition a tragedy and more so our animosity towards each other.

Bani Abidi

a) Having visited Pakistan did you have had any such moments of surprised, tragic and hilarious cognition?

b) Would your collection have been influenced by these parallels?

AP. I guess I was surprised with the culture that spoke in a curious mix of Urdu, English and Punjabi. The love and the warmth that was showered on me left lasting impressions. For me the whole experience of being in Pakistan, interacting with new artists and works, was very exciting and intoxicating.