Closer to the Edge
Travelling through the sprawling city of Karachi with its mix of five star hotels, Raj
buildings, Defence and Clifton mansions, Nazimabad and Korangi, [1]and
the many inner city streets with strange names, crowded streets, diesel fumed
buses and traffic jams, it is difficult to believe it is a historic city
The history of Karachi
is ancient. It was a pilgrimage site for
both Hindus and Muslims. The temple of Mahadev at Kothari Parade is mentioned
in the Ramayana; Ram and Sita, heroes of the Ramayana are said to have spent a
night on the way to their pilgrimage to Hinglaj in Balochistan at the Ram Bagh,
todays Aram Bagh; It was home to Abdullah Shah and his brother Yousef Shah,
both tenth century Sufis, the
twelfth century saint, Manghopir, and Morerio, the hero of Shah Abdul Latif’s Sur
Ghato, Buried under the government houses on Bath Island are the remains of
the sixteenth century capital of Raja Diborai.[2]
Modern Karachi city’s history begins in 1729, when Hindu
and Parsi businessmen established a new port after the Hab river estuary silted
up in 1728. In 1838, the British occupied Karachi
to use it as the landing port for their troops for the First Afghan War. It
soon became a thriving Raj city, with India ’s first airport and the largest
hanger in the world at the time.
After 1947 the population jumped
from 450,000 to 1,137,000 as the hospitable Sindhis made room for 600,000
Muslim refugees arriving from riot torn India . The over 50 percent Hindu
population dwindled to a mere 2 percent as Hindus migrated to India and the
language of Karachi
changed from 61percent Sindhi speaking to 50 percent Urdu speaking. [3]
Yet, I and many others love Karachi and would not
want to live anywhere else. I love the spirit of its people that joke and smile
in the face of gunfire; I love its many, many markets that I am still
discovering, I love its mix of languages and foods, and crazy houses made to
look like peacocks, or the watertanks shapes like footballs or airplanes. I
love the thousands of people who visit the Mazar-e-Quaid[5]
on 14th August dressed in green and white or pile up into Suzuki
high roofs to break their fast at
Seaview[6]
in Ramzan[7].
I love having a beach. I love the zany wedding halls of Nagan[8]
and the decorated buses. I even love the young boys boom booming their music as
they weave through traffic jams.
I love the wall chalking, makrani
donkey races[9],
daredevils racing their bikes and cars in deserted streets by the sea. I love
the camaraderie that develops when a visiting VIP holds up the traffic for
hours. I love the humid air that wraps around you, and the summer breeze.
So what does this all have to do
with art? The best art develops at the point of change and no where in Pakistan is
change so evident as in Karachi .
The Karachi of my childhood had an open spread out skyline; one main shopping
area downtown; lots of cinema theatres, even a dew nightclubs and bars. Going
out for a drive in the evening was a standard leisure activity. There was one
state owned television channel with only an evening transmission. Front doors
were seldom locked. Then the world swept
in bringing high rise, internet, and 400 new cars a day. The city transformed
into MacDonalds and KFC, gigantic shopping malls and madrassas[10];
beards and hijab[11]
stop at traffic lights next to body polishing and gel, both in the same style
of cars; QTV and MTV, Sony and Hum,[12]
interchange in mid sentence as dazed grandparents switch channels; High tec flies in from Dubai as jamaidars[13]
with coconut palm brooms make neat piles of dust along roadsides.
Artists have been describing the
city ever since it came into existence, however, in European art, the Romanticism
of the Landscape predominated until the city could be ignored no more. After
the industrial revolution, the Impressionists were quick to understand that the
new landscape was urban, paving the way for the more bold movements of cubism
and futurism.
Mughal miniatures, interestingly,
have always been more urban. Its settings were palaces, palace gardens, streets
and views into houses Landscape was the mere backdrop or an aside to experiment
with perspective as practiced in European art.
The British colonial influence introduced European art traditions. It
also encouraged a new style of exotic “ cultural” images lingering on to this
day with a plethora of Thari[14]
women and other village belles. Lahore
wholeheartedly embraced the landscape tradition, with its rich green
surroundings and agricultural
environment. The cityscapes of Lahore
artists have also been focused on rendering a romanticized view of the old
city, exceptions being Colin David, Ijazul Hasan and Iqbal Hussain.
In Karachi , on the other hand, it requires great
determination to ignore the city. It is in us around us and we rarely travel
out into its arid environs ( of course, with the exception of Sadeqain). Bashir
Mirza, Rabia Zuberi, Mehr Afroze, Naheed Raza, Nagori, and even Jamil Naqsh remained
occupied with “humanscapes” or else, the
interface between the individual and society.
As postmodernism has trickled in
to Pakistan, these continuing concerns have been explored more consciously with
new media or newly revived media, as in the case of the neo-miniaturists. The
nineties saw artists looking outside mainstream art at popular art, working
with public art, collaborative works, installations. Since then, there has been
no looking back.
The various art schools of the
city with a new generation of internationally trained faculty, have for the
past decade, been the catalyst for a new generation of artists who have broken
with the tradition of oil paintings or sculptural objects. Their work is more
diverse, more experimental, struggling to find new languages in which to decode
their experience of living in this complex city. Regular inputs from visiting
artists from, for example, the Vasl[15]
International Art workshops, whose main interest in working here is to engage
with the “ new” environment they find themselves in, has also strengthened the
sense of purpose of local artists.
Since 1994, public artworks,
collaborations with popular artists, use of new media created he possibilities
for a more inclusive and accessible approach to art. New spaces for art emerged : art was being
shown on the streets, at Gadani[16]
Beach or public parks. The VM Gallery and now the new Artists Commune, have been
quick to realize this new art needs a new use of space.
“Cityscapes” 1999, was held at Galleria Sadeqain, in the city’s Frere Hall
Gardens. Curated by young Art graduates, it included readings by the city’s
poets throughout the duration of the exhibition. Karachi was recovering from
the urban violence of the nineties. Six years on, what has changed? What has
stayed the same? 9/11, the spread of computer Graphics, Satellite television,
opening of borders, the earthquake of 2006, floods and war - edgy times, and an
uncomfortable uncertainty will I am sure define the work exhibited in 6/6:The
Labyrinth, and pace out the difference.
Durriya Kazi
[1]
Areas of Karachi
[2]
Urban Resource Council
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
Ibid.
[5]
The Mausoleum of M.A, Jinnah, founder of Pakistan
[6]
A public seaside parade
[7]
The Muslim month of fasting
[8]
An area in Karachi where many wedding halls are located
[9]
Makranis or sheedis are an ethnic group from the Makran coast who hold donkey
cart races every week.
[10]
Religious schools
[11]
Orthodox Muslim men wear beards and women cover their heads and bodies.
[12]
Cable channels QTV: Quranic , MTV: western Music , Sony: Indian entertainment,
Hum: Pakistani entertainment.
[13]
sweepers
[14]
Women of the Thar desert of Sindh who wear a distinctive style of colourful
clothes
[15]
An artists association for International Art Workshops
[16]
A beach along the coast of Baluchistan
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