Artist residencies are a great way to experience new places, often taking the artists away from tourist sites into everyday situations. These residencies become even more interesting for visiting artists when they are held in cities like Karachi. The internet has greatly reduced distances allowing us to connect easily with each other. Despite that, the news media continues to create perceptions that can only be shattered by personal experiences of a place. The artists, who land in Karachi (which according to some international publications is the most dangerous city in the world) come with their loaded perceptions resulting from repetitive rhetoric of news media, informing and misinforming at the same time.

A five-week residency, “Between Thinking, Seeing, Saying and Nothing” organised by the Vasl Artists’ Collective, included artists Marco Pezzotta from Italy / Germany, Eric Peter from Netherlands, and Shaheen Jaffrani and Fazal Rizvi both from Pakistan. It recently concluded in the form of an exhibition of artists’ work at IVS Gallery, Karachi.

The two European artists came to the country for a mind-blowing experience; however, they were surprised to see ordinary life — a functioning place amid chaos! Once the earlier perceptions were shattered they took to exploring the city but always under supervision of the local artists. They were fascinated by the abundance of hearts on local transport and easy availability of a range of materials to work with. Both collaborated with local craftspersons to create objects using repoussé and chamak patti techniques. It is unusual for them to engage with materials in this manner and create objects. This method of working seemed to fill the gap between them and the local people.

The show is the result of a five-week residency attended by two European artists and two Pakistani artists

Apart from the crafted objects, Marco’s work is a collection of intriguingly familiar and unfamiliar objects that he came across during his time here. On the floor, a large nylon prayer mat acts as a playground of assorted objects. Marco uses ordinary objects as archaeological evidence that help to comprehend historical narratives. Every object is a symbol of a much larger reality, e.g. a tiny map of Africa with German flag painted on it, on one hand reminds us of Germany’s football World Cup win in 2010 but also alludes to neo-colonialism.

In Eric’s work, there is a series of three video recorded interviews, a performance based method that is part of his practice and referred to as ‘familiar strangers’. The ordinary people he came across during the residency include a Baluch leader, a driver and a poet. The meetings are investigations meant for mutual understandings and finding common ground.

Shaheen, a fresh graduate, placed canvasses on the road that collected marks of everyday movements in the city. Later, these were fixed to objects that are found in indoor spaces. It is unclear whether she intends to create a dialogue between the outside and the inside, raise a social concern, focus on mark making or address decay in the city. Varied and individual interpretations of the work could become an interesting starting point for further investigations.

The resident artist writer, Fazal, creates imaginary conversations in the form of letters to his mother. He weaves these with actual conversations with the three resident artists. These are recorded in an abstract form in a printed booklet, ‘verba volant, scripta manent’, translated as spoken words fly away, written words remain.

Artist residencies provide an ideal platform to develop new directions in art making. While it is not expected that the artists produce finished bodies of work, it is interesting to see work in progress and emerging ideas. All four artists seem to be in a contemplative dialogue with each other, with wider circle of people and with the place. Their work is a result of what they saw, often through each other’s eyes, and what they decided to examine.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, April 19th, 2015

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