Throughout history artists have practised new ways to create art. In the 15th century oils — paint made with pigments bound with drying oil — became the ‘new media’. In the early 1900s, Alfred Stieglitz established an American photography movement as an independent means of artistic expression and artists such as Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy produced images without a camera, using light reflected on sensitive paper. The term ‘Digital art’ emerged when the World Wide Web was created by Timothy Berners-Lee in the 1980 and artists soon recognised the artistic potential of the media.

In Pakistan, artists’ skillfully and freely express their views in a number of traditional and new ‘media ways’ that have gained global interest. Artists such as Taqi Shaheen show their work in prestigious exhibitions overseas to considerable acclaim.

“Technology has become the body’s new membrane of existence,” said Nam June Paik. These words came to mind recently when viewing an exhibition at Koel Gallery, Karachi of the latest work of the multimedia artist, Shaheen whose series reflected on the city of his youth, Karachi. One concluded that he is the artist for whom the world of expression is the pearl in his oyster.

Taqi Shaheen creates a montage of aerial views of Karachi tracking the transformation wrought by time

During his student years at the National College of Arts, Lahore, in 2002, the artist established ‘Dedechi’; a company of artists, musicians and performers to produce collaborative work in films and the theatre. His wide interests encompass successfully writing, directing and designing sets for the theatre and documentary filmmaking. Since his graduation from the NCA in 2004, Shaheen has produced over 20 series of works exploring urban culture, as well as video installations.

Explaining the current exhibition, the artist says, “The show ‘Once upon a time in Karachi’ refers broadly to the transitions of location and time in today’s urban environment through themes of urban living, celebration, loss and rootlessness …”

Moving on from a previous series of photographs of the city, in his latest series of work shown in the show, the artist has created a montage of aerial views of Karachi. Composed of collage and digital prints on archival paper and canvas, the digital prints and collage works track the transformation wrought by time.

His compositions are built with new media techniques enriched by narrative patterns and hues while creating journeys through regions with turbulence contained by distance. While exploring the artist’s theme in exhibition, one discovers a video film of the sea including, one that appears to contribute to the series an ambience that is reassuring as one watches the breaking waves of an ageless pattern.

There are references to the city’s history in a print that encompasses a remnant of ancient newspaper clipping dated 1906. The artwork titled ‘The prince’s memoirs’ refers to a visit to the colonial India made by a former heir to the British throne who stopped over at Karachi, and one glimpses fragments of views of the past. Text, design and references to Michael Angelo open the theme to a shared global enigma, a poignant suggestion of the artist’s need to grasp and document a changing terrain inflected by rapidly changing borders and displacement.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, October 12th, 2014