< Previous80 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 MOMENTS & MEANINGS Zarina Bhimji. A still from Jangbar. 2015. Courtesy of the artist HBA_040_80-81_La photographie_Zarina Bhimji_11385734.indd 8001/10/2020 05:51:36 PM81 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 La PHOTOGRAPHIE Ugandan photographer Zarina Bhimji has consistently sought the universal in both its literal and abstract manifestations... Zarina Bhimji. A still from Out of Blue. 2002. Courtesy of the artist pening in October, Sharjah Art Foundation has organised a large-scale survey of work by artist Zarina Bhimji, curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, Director of Sharjah Art Foundation. A 2007 Turner Prize nominee represented in major public collections such as London’s Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum (which has loaned a major work for the show), Bhimji is known for her poetic fi lms, photographs and installations. Although equally attuned to political discourse and personal experience, her work has consistently sought the universal in both its literal and abstract manifestations. “My intention is not to make a documentary but to express grief, love, contradictions and claustrophobia,” she explains, outlining a sentiment explored in over 30 years of work spanning three galleries. Born in Uganda to South Asian parents and now living in the United Kingdom, Bhimji has described art-making as a search for language beyond words. For example, in her earliest fi lm, Out of Blue (2002), she confronts the heaviness of her fi rst return to Uganda since fl eeing as a child with her family, following the country’s 1972 expulsion of South Asians. During a research trip, she recalls seeing, “The way farmers burned the land for cultivation before planning. This idea fascinated me because it was about replenishing. It inspired me to think of different times, the landscape being betrayed and different types of betrayal and passion.” Many of Bhimji’s works search for connection with time beyond our direct experience. During the production of her latest fi lm, Jangbar (2015), she recalls that travelling along the Kenya Railway led to routine encounters with abandoned buildings and housing quarters punctuating the landscape. Overtime, she observed differences in architecture that not only allowed for a meditation on inequality articulated in these sites, that not only speaks to the time of their making, but also to their legacy that continues to mark the land. Bhimji’s exploration of power does not privilege any one side; instead she is concerned with how power is exercised. In her work, this subject is often explored as intimacy or vulnerability, as the light box, Memories Were Trapped Inside the Asphalt (2003). Here, the image not only brings into focus a derelict interior that conveys instability but also care, as evidenced in the wall’s pale green coat of paint and the delicate fi ngerprints left by former inhabitants. As the art world slowly begins to reopen, Bhimji offers audiences an exhibition of works that function as vignettes, which invite intimate engagements with collective experience. sharjahart.org Zarina Bhimji: Black Pocket exhibition is on view from 2 October 2020 until 10 April 2021 at Galleries 4, 5 & 6 Al Mureijah Art Spaces Images c ourt es y of the artis t and Sharjah Art F oundation HBA_040_80-81_La photographie_Zarina Bhimji_11385734.indd 8101/10/2020 05:51:44 PM82 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 British photographer Sohail Karmani is building connections and breaking perceptions with his ‘people photography’, while beautifully capturing the vibrant street culture in Pakistan, writes Nada Al-Said HU M A N NA T U R E HBA_040_82-85_La photographie_Sohail Karmani_11385925.indd 8201/10/2020 05:52:18 PM83 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 La PHOTOGRAPHIE en years ago, in his early forties, Sohail Karmani travelled to his father’s home country of Pakistan for the very fi rst time. He visited Sahiwal in Eastern Central Punjab, where his father was from. Here, Karmani not only rediscovered his roots, but he found a new direction in life. He became a photographer. “I was just astonished,” Karmani recalls. “It’s a country that is extremely vibrant. It has a great buzz and energy about it. The photography just happened organically. I have always been interested in photography, but it really took off when I went to Pakistan.” Not wanting to misrepresent a place or its people, Karmani has developed a patient approach to his work. “You could take a photograph in a fraction of a second and it can tell a very different story than perhaps, a nanosecond later,” he refl ects. “The key thing I look for is dignity. You want to take a picture that dignifi es your subject and presents them how you, yourself, might want to be photographed.” As both an artist and an academic, Karmani has an appreciation for the nuances of ethical photography and travel. He asks himself, “How am I representing this foreign culture? Are my photographs providing a fair representation of how the culture is? Is what I’m doing ethically defensible?” His work not only provides insights into culture, but it encourages his audience to see a refl ection of themselves through the differences “ I L I K E TO B E L I E V E T H A T M Y P H OTOGR A P HS C A N CO N N EC T W I T H E V E R Y O N E . T H E Y A T T E S T TO T H E H U M A N CO N D I T I O N E V E R Y W H E R E . T H E R E ’ S A U N I V E R SA L M E SSA GE ” Facing page: Sohail Karmani. Village girl in Pakistan. 2019; Village girl in Sahiwal. 2019. Courtesy of the artist in others. In doing so, he creates a sense of universality in his photographs. “I like to believe that my photographs can connect with everyone,” he says. “They attest to the human condition everywhere. There’s a universal message.” Connecting with people is central to Karmani’s philosophy. While he believes that labels are restrictive, he describes himself as a “people photographer.” The photographer is fascinated by the human face and curious about what makes people tick. He confesses that he can never tire of capturing the human face and wondering what is going on “behind the mask.” Karmani draws inspiration for his work from the visual arts. He has long admired the use of light and colour in fi lms by Italian HBA_040_82-85_La photographie_Sohail Karmani_11385925.indd 8301/10/2020 05:52:24 PM84 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 W o rds b y Nada Al-Said Images c ourt es y of the artis t cinematographers such as Vittorio Storaro. He is also inspired by the painters of the late 16th century. According to Karmani, Italian painter Caravaggio’s use of light, shadows and tonal range embody what the perfect photograph should look like. For him, “There is something about the colours in Pakistan that is reminiscent of renaissance art.” This is one of the many reasons why he keeps being drawn back to the country. Fuelled to correct misinformed perceptions of Pakistan, Karmani says his photographs, “Can humanise the country that is often misunderstood,” he explains, speaking about the collection of photographs in his book, The Spirit of Sahiwal. “I want the audience to connect with these people and feel some sort of empathy towards them. It is a book that I would like to have seen as a young man growing up in England. If I had seen a book like that in my mid-twenties, I might have come to a different conclusion about the country. I might have visited it earlier than when I visited it in my forties.” The Spirit of Sahiwal is a powerful combination of Karmani’s academic prowess, artistry and identity. “It is my personal journey into a part of the world that has deep meaning for me,” he expresses. “It is a visual testimony of me reconnecting with my roots from the dual perspective of an insider and outsider.” Karmani’s work will be exhibited at the Xposure International Photography Festival in Sharjah in February 2021. He will also be exhibiting his work at the Spazio Kryptos gallery in Milan, Italy in October 2020. karmani.photography Sohail Karmani. A photo of two boys taken at a dumping site in Sahiwal, Pakistan (2019), depicting friendship, innocence and resilience. Courtesy of the artist Clockwise from top left: Sohail Karmani. Young girl in Sahiwal. 2017; Elderly village woman in Sahiwal. 2018; Village-cooking in Pakistan. 2018. All courtesy of the artist HBA_040_82-85_La photographie_Sohail Karmani_11385925.indd 8401/10/2020 05:52:29 PM85 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 La PHOTOGRAPHIE Sohail Karmani. Sufi Mystic in Sahiwal, Pakistan. 2017; Below: Woman in Sahiwal. 2017. Courtesy of the artist HBA_040_82-85_La photographie_Sohail Karmani_11385925.indd 8501/10/2020 05:52:37 PM86 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 After winning the Best Documentary Award at the Indian World Film Festival, Saba Khan speaks to Iman Vakil about her debut documentary film, Concrete Dreams: Some Roads Lead Home, ahead of its October release CONCRETE DREAMS For fi lmmaker, author and NYU Abu Dhabi Instructor Saba Khan, her new documentary Concrete Dreams, “Is about rupturing the myth of static futures.” Narrated by Owais Ali and Mohammad Salman, two formerly homeless Pakistani teenagers who rose to fame after winning bronze at the Rio Street Child World Cup, the fi lm surveys the friends’ efforts to catapult their Somebody campaign and give rise to a nationwide cultural movement empowering homeless children. Drawn to the movement for going beyond appeals for fi nancial support or external interventions, Khan uses her fi lm to chart how an identity, in a city as divided by class as Karachi, is reclaimed. Filming Ali and Salman over four years in their native neighbourhoods, Khan, pointing to the sharp class divides still steering the city, admits, “It opened up gateways into parts of Karachi, allegedly my hometown, which were completely unfamiliar.” With current estimates of 1.5 million homeless children in Pakistan, Khan ensures, “The fi lm doesn’t downsize the trauma of streetlife: crime, mafi as, abuse – but it mantles against narratives of despair.” Instead, Khan is fi ghting against what she deems the ‘anxiety epidemic’. “When you think of Pakistan, you think of all things combustible: a terror-and- panic rumour mill keeping us in its clutches by constantly peddling seething, doomsday narratives, plaguing us with the alleged threat of Pakistan teetering at the abyss,” she explains, preferring to provide examples of social mobility instead. “Seeing homeless children loitering aimlessly, begging, washing windscreens, eating at shrines, sleeping on footpaths, knocking at car windows as part of a daily experience growing up in Pakistan,” Khan recounts, frustrated with bystander passivity. She formerly covered Pakistan’s underage workforce From top: A still from Concrete Dreams: Some Roads Lead Home; Mohammad Salman and Owais Ali W ORD S B Y IMAN V AKIL IMA GES C OUR TES Y OF ZADIE KELL Y The FILM HBA_040_86-87_Film_Saba_11388030.indd 8601/10/2020 05:55:48 PM87 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 Above: Filmmaker Saba Khan; Below: The making of Concrete Dreams: Some Roads Lead Home and streetlife, relaying the depth of socioeconomic obstructions marginalised children in the city faced, but also coming to learn of a fl urry of creative activity being utilised as both a source of income and a site for community, which included welding, football, sculpting, painting, plumbing, handicrafts and carpentry. “Amidst the chaotic lives that so many of these children lead – everyday strains of earning money, food and shelter, the pursuit of sport, music and art can be seen as a luxury instead of a necessity,” she suggests. “But there are ways to turn creative prowess into an asset that can eventually address some of those burdens, as we’ve seen happen in Ali and Salman’s case.” Currently an instructor in the Social Science division at NYU Abu Dhabi, Khan attributes the fi lm’s formation to be largely due to the collaborative culture at the university. “I don’t have formal training as a fi lmmaker, just a desire to tell stories which we may otherwise never hear,” she admits. “Desire and zest can only take you so far. Filmmaking is, after all, a craft. So, I turned to some fantastic colleagues at NYU who were unstinting with their time and advice.” Concrete Dreams, she comes to conclude, is a collaborative creation by all accounts. The documentary fi lm Concrete Dreams: Some Roads Lead Home directed by Saba Khan will be released in October 2020 HBA_040_86-87_Film_Saba_11388030.indd 8701/10/2020 05:55:54 PM88 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 ecognising the traditional miniature’s capacity for carrying multiple narratives and its unique relationship with text and image, Turkish curators Azra Tüzüno lu and Gülce Özkara are demonstrating the contemporary miniature’s far- reaching subversive potential in the Miniature 2.0: Miniature in Contemporary Art exhibition at the Pera Museum in Istanbul. The show features 14 artists across Turkey, South Asia and the Middle East. Exploring their shared cultural heritage, works by Halil Altındere, Dana Awartani, Fereydoun Ave, CANAN, Hayv Kahraman, Imran Qureshi, Shahzia Sikander, Saira Wasim and Pera Museum’s new exhibition Miniature 2.0 is entirely dedicated to contemporary miniaturists in the MENASA region. Iman Vakil surveys the politically charged upcoming show presenting the miniature’s formal expansion into sculpture, moving images and assemblage, proving it to be anything but archaic MINIATURE THAWING THE Facing page: Canan. Falname series. Installation view. 2020. Ink, gouache and pen on special paper others readapt the traditional miniature to delve into colonialism, identity politics, forced migration and representation. Taking reference from renowned Pakistani contemporary miniaturist Shahzia Sikander’s Fleshy Weapons (1997), controversially combining Indian and Pakistani symbology, the exhibition intertwines the work of various Muslim-majority countries, disrupting isolationist politics during the rise of nationalist discourses. Laden with conceptual meaning since its inception, miniature painting has long held distinctive principles rejecting illusionistic representation. Created collectively, the signifi cance and meaning of a subject-guided miniature painting, instead of its physicality, which utilises an unfolding perspective, is in stark contrast to the European single-point. Today, the miniature, at large, remains frozen in both time and function, serving as an emblem of a past, independent era of glory. HBA_040_88-91_ThePreview_Miniature 2_11386111.indd 8801/10/2020 05:56:23 PM89 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 The PREVIEW HBA_040_88-91_ThePreview_Miniature 2_11386111.indd 8901/10/2020 05:56:29 PMNext >