Lahore-based artist Risham Syed’s recent solo show, ‘Appointments and Disappointments with History’, at Canvas Gallery, Karachi, is a multi-layered rendition of her sense of beauty as it connects to the politics of power and histories of displacement.

This particular body of work is a dialogue through objects, namely dulaais or quilts, that have been passed on by her mother. It is executed with a finely refined eye and acquired taste, where ‘taste’ inevitably also becomes the artist’s viewpoint and subject.

Syed’s narrative meanders into the colonial gaze, being close to objects that she inherited that are typical in an elite Punjabi household. She critiques from within this frame, and allows the viewer to enter a poetic interlude far back into time, while at the same time seeking what is timelessly beautiful.

She chooses to display her mother’s half-broken fake Gardiner teapot, for its hand-painted floral imagery, and also for what is lost and displaced. These porcelain pots were originally made in a factory near Moscow, sometime before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and exported to Islamic markets.

Risham Syed’s latest exhibition takes on the politics of power and histories of displacement through inherited objects

Interestingly, the Gardiner factory was set up by a Scottish émigré in the mid-18th century. A hundred years later, his pots became popular in India, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Other pieces of crockery, such as Alfred Meakin Gravy Boat, Johnson Brothers Teapot and Royal Doulton Plate extend the conversation on trade routes and their colonial legacy, and divisions of class and taste.

The artist’s soulful voice singing a poem written by her father echoes through the gallery. The poem reads “…we pass through destructive splits, created by dominant possessiveness, we then make available, the art of sewing the separated souls into oneness, every tongue then tastes the playful songs of Lal Hussain.” The nuanced rendering recedes somewhere into the far distance. It is a voice that seems to have been retrieved from another time. These are the outer parameters of the narrative.

The gallery is drenched in what we colloquially refer to in Urdu as aatishigulabi [fuschia], totai [parrot green], among flaming reds, oranges and deep turquoise, in the original colours of the silk brocade dulaais. These dulaais were bought in the 1980s by the artist’s mother from Chinese hajis who were passing by Lahore for their pilgrimage to Mecca.

Traditionally, mothers would collect linen and crockery for their daughters’ trousseau. Syed transformed the functionality of the dulaais into objects of art, without altering the form. So, a dulaai is what you see. Had the dulaais been placed on a bed in the gallery as an installation, or folded and stacked in one of the rooms as dulaais usually are, the connotations of the art would have changed completely.

I enjoy these ambiguities, where the work confronts you and allows you to entertain different possibilities of viewing and responding to an idea. The softness of the fabric that is threaded by hand comes from the inner quarters of a feminine space, with obvious connotations to dowry, sexuality, vulnerability, love and power. It is also a private/public scenario of exploitation and dominance.

The sensibility shifts gear to meander into age-old stories, into picture making, collage that bears the stamp of a printmaker. It is perhaps only an experienced and trained artist who can dance this dance, oblivious of rules or trends, retrieving from references of botanical illustrations, world maps from different time periods, skilfully appliqued fauna and imagery of birds and animals who are losing their natural habitat, and photographs of towering garish luxury residencies in Lahore.

These multiple stories co-exist, disorienting the viewer, just like the displaced flamingo facing the Ali Trade Centre building, over an old map, juxtaposed with a plate from Royal Doulton. Or an image of what looks like a Wisteria flower appliqued diagonally across the large dulaai, towering over another image of the Ali Trade Centre.

In her own words, she “hints at the idea of multinationals that have no accountability, because they don’t belong to a land, but come out of the idea of colonising land.” She thus connects the personal to a bigger rupture, in what she narrates is a “present moment in which nature is ready to exit.”

‘Appointments and Disappointments with History’ was exhibited at the Canvas Gallery in Karachi from September 27-October 6, 2022

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 23rd, 2022