i ≠ i

is the title of a group show that opened on 14^th October, 2011 at Nairang gallery. The exhibition is a product of a 2 week workshop with final year (BFA and MA) students at Beaconhouse National University, conducted by Kathrin Becker, who is a curator and art historian from Berlin. As the title of the show suggests, the 19 artists in this show indulge themselves in authoring, narrating and acting the ‘self’, investigating the subject of embodiment and the embodiment of subjectivity, interrogating the subjective dimension of ‘being’ and examining the dislocation and fragmentation of that ‘being’. Though, autobiographical self-representation has throughout history been the subject of art but this autobiography, while expanding modes of self representation through a process of self-knowledge and self-telling, reveals the conception of the ‘self’ as an imaginary construct, “fragmented, provisional, multiple and continuously in process”.

“the autobiographical enacts the self that it claims has given rise to an ‘I’ and that ‘I’ is neither unified nor stable – it is fragmented, provisional, multiple and continuously in process”. (Interfaces: Women, Autobiography, Image, Performance,pg 9).

            Demonstrating the permeability of the self’s physical and symbolic boundaries, the works in the show, reflect on memory, negotiate the past, engage aspects of gendered selves, lived experiences, popular culture and critique socio-political and cultural constructs/narratives, all of which is co-existing in the same space. Mirza Ruknuddi Ahmad’s I love Art, is a site of conflicting social definitions and a ground for examining the constructed and mediated roles. Hanifa Alizada, redefines her gendered Afghani (war-torned) identity with a fine balance of humor in Who we are? Rabia Anwar’s Split, in an investigation of similarities and differences between her mother and herself as brides, becomes the articulation of female subjectivity. Zeb Bilal’s I am the ‘Other’, traces the history of hybrid identities exemplified in dresses of the colonizers and the colonized. Similarly Sadaf Chughtai in Three views of Lahore Fort, traces the history of modernity and progress, the final image is a hybrid of old and new Lahore exemplified in the architecture of her Fort. Umair Iqbal’s representation of identity is also associated to a city and culture but to something more tangible, perhaps ‘only’ tangible. Lying somewhere between rebellion and submission, Raiha tul Jannah’s works address issues of her gendered identity, difference and the politics of representation. Among the participants also, are; Sofia Shahi, Shimul Saha, Anees-ur-Rehman, Shumaila Noor, Saima Noor, Ahmed Faizan, Maimoona, Eliza Khosa. It is practically impossible to discuss all the works here, so i shall briefly present some of them, all of which approach the issue of identity from divergent perspectives.

            Saleem Abbas’s Identify??? is a short video, in which Abbas, who is easily identifiable because of his long black hair, has used himself as a site and a metaphor for the representation of the self. The screen, split into two, shows Abbas, from the front and back view on either side, combing his long dark hair, wearing a pair of jeans and no shirt. Diminishing the distinction between front and back by covering his face with hair and wearing the pants and the belt inversely, Abbas confuses his audience, even if only for a few seconds, and makes them ponder over the process of identification.

                                                                                          Similar in aesthetics, is Komal Naz’s presence in her almost 3 minutes long untitled video. Confined in a close frame is a wooden stool laying on its side that Naz, tries to fit into. While Naz struggles with this seemingly meaningless task, illustrating an existential crisis, one waits for nothing to happen, as if stuck in motion for time immemorial, which could be further highlighted if the video didn’t fade into black every time before restarting, it could easily do without marking the starting and the ending especially when there was no starting and ending and could have worked better in using it as a metaphor for the space which the mind occupies. Nevertheless, this video was one of the most engaging pieces in the show.

                                                                                          Use of family snapshots open reservoirs of memories, but it’s certainly the objects and not the people in those photos that Zaib Haider is after; household details, toys, shoes, bags, e.t.c, fraught with meaning, besieged by domesticity, drained of life as mundane objects, a very important feature of family albums. Haider intends to appropriate, disturb and manipulate images that look simple, naive and sacred, resulting in distortion, disorder and disintegration by highlighting certain details while blurring the others.

            Amber Hammad, unlike others is not directly the subject of her work. Her digitally manipulated, Hum keh Thehray Ajnabi is an image made with photographs of bazaars from both Lahore and Delhi. The uncanny resemblance between the sister-cities is further highlighted by baring the image off any cultural references to bodily differences and reducing the people to black silhouettes. Pointing out the similarities more than the differences between the two, Hum keh Thehray Ajnabi while negotiating between self and other is a comment on close familial ties, shared histories, displacement, nostalgia and unfriendly relations, calling into question the true status of seemingly fixed categories of identity and our reliance on socially, politically and culturally assigned identities.

            These artists challenging the notions of prescribed identities, however superficially, have at least begun to analyze the reality of their own fiction. Also, its a good drill for people who will be putting together their degree shows in only a few months.