KARACHI: The last event of the distinguished lecture series held to commemorate 25 years of the Mohatta Palace Museum was a presentation by additional curator of the museum Saima Zaidi on ‘Revisiting the Visual Vernacular of Mazaar and Bazaar’.

She was introduced to the audience by artist Durriya Kazi.

Ms Zaidi’s talk was divided into three parts. The first was Mazaar Bazaar: Design and Visual Culture in Pakistan, a book that she edited and was published in 2010. The second was to do with a curatorial project called ‘Scheherazade: The Walled City Anthology’. And the last part was about her forthcoming book Hazaar Bazaar.

Ms Zaidi with respect to the first segment said Mazaar Bazaar has five sections: dekh magar pyar se on popular culture; read — the visual implications of the text; be Pakistani buy Pakistani, celebrating local consumer culture; Pakistan Zindabad, the construct of national identity; and pre-partition perspective.

She began the first bit of her presentation in reverse order by talking about Khamsa of Nizami, five tales of romance and adventure, the legends from both Arabian and Persian literatures, which also celebrated the tradition of painting and calligraphy of Mughal India. It led her to tell the story of Iskandar and the Qipchaq.

“It relates to the time when Alexander travels to the desert of Qipchaq in Turkey. Here Alexander and his soldiers come across unveiled beauty. The custom of the land does not dictate women to veil themselves. Alexander is concerned because his men are becoming restless observing all the beauty around them. So he approaches the elders of the Qipchaq to request the women to veil their faces. Interestingly, they turn around, rebuke him and say that the veils should be on the eyes of the soldiers. Dissatisfied with the answer, he consults a magician who suggests a performance in the centre of the desert, placing a veiled woman. The women get drawn to that image and cover their faces.”

Ms Zaidi said what the story denotes is the power of the image and the influence it exerts on us.

Carrying on with the argument, she showed the image of the packaging of Tibet talcum powder from 1951, having a shy lady’s picture on it. The artist that made it was Manzoor Ahmed who was part of a generation of artists inspired by the women of early South Asian cinema. She followed it up with other pictures such as that of the Jhara Pahwlan-Inoki fight poster depicting notions of masculinity, and those of Rooh Afza and Pakola bottles — the latter signifying patriotism.

Concluding the results of her research, she underlined that the images indicated a pluralistic, inclusive society based in the region which is now Pakistan. “It’s a celebration of diversity.”

Ms Zaidi then turned her focus on the second part of the talk, which was an immersive curatorial project about the over 1,000-year-old androon shehr of Lahore, a city within a city.

She told attendees that the installations for the project commenced at Delhi Darwaza. The work also entailed Sabil Wali Gali, Patli Gali, Phoolon Wali Gali and Chowk Wazir Khan. There were installations such as ‘1001 Flowers’ and ‘Lahore Da Daman’. Summing up that segment, she said it was about gathering of strangers and community engagement [since it was for the general public].

Shedding light on her upcoming book Hazaar Bazaar, which should be out this year, Ms Zaidi said, “This is the idea of bazaar not as a physical space only but as a fluid space. It comprises six sections: spaces of transition, spaces of transaction, the gaze, text and texture, the ambivalent archive and mazaar darbaar.

The presentation was followed by a waaee recital by Zulfiqar Ali, Nazar Hussain and Mazhar Hussain.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2024