ISLAMABAD: An art exhibition highlighting the degradation of the environment started at Gallery 6 on Friday.

As part of its Art for Social Change initiative, Gallery 6 Islamabad invited artists, photographers, a film maker and a journalist to travel together and observe the effects of climate change and environmental degradation in northern Pakistan.

The resulting artwork was displayed in the exhibition titled Art for Climate Change, which was inaugurated by Spanish Ambassador Manuel Duran.

“Pakistan is one of the top 10 most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change, the effects of which are being experienced in different forms such as extreme temperatures, flash floods, droughts, land degradation, climate migration and water stresses.

“The situation requires communicating with a wider and more general audience through any means possible,” said the curator of the show, Dr Arjumand Faisel.

The artworks highlighted several issues in stunning ways. Photographer Amna Yaseen has used double exposure technique to draw attention towards rapid deforestation, invasion of open spaces, excessive consumption of fossil fuel, land erosion and other issues.

Irfan Gul Dahri’s two striking paintings stress on evolving to save the world from man-induced damages.

Sana Arjumand’s three paintings show greed is changing landscapes, which is also forcing birds to migrate.

The use of coin images in black and red represent the effects of black money and blood money on degrading factors which ultimately lead to climate change.

Kiran Saleem, Fakhra Asif and SM Khayyam have drawn attention towards the spread of garbage. Many areas, which were still beautiful and attractive for tourists were being turned into dumpsites by visitors, endangering surroundings.

Asad Asghar and Mohammad Akram draw attention towards the increasing use of wood and paper in daily life, which resulted in extensive cutting of trees and contributing to climate change.

Asad Asghar has developed posters with the slogan “Stop killing yourself, Stop cutting trees”.

A related poster campaign “Plant for me” had been developed by Dr Arjumand Faisel. He has also made paintings highlighting threats to trout fish, one of the treasures of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is badly affected by flash floods and caught excessively.

Sujjal Kiani has two posters and three sculptures that told viewers about the massive water crisis. Her work was a taunt for misusing water. Using two different mediums, she presented the distorted and torn down reflection of people, which spoke about the ugly reality of the mindset.

Each piece challenged viewers and urged them to act for preserving beautiful landscapes and the environment, which was also presented aesthetically by the landscape painters Ajab Khan, Mohammad Tariq, Abid Khan and Mohammad Arshad and photographer Tariq Zameer.

The show also provided hope with poster campaigns and paintings such as those by Jamil Baloch showing how small efforts at individual levels could bring positive changes.

The film recording the process of the retreat and environmental damages in Northern Areas made by Ali Ijaz was also captivating.

The same works were displayed in an exhibition earlier at the Pakistan National Council of Arts which was inaugurated by the president.

The exhibition will continue till Feb 22.