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event
Spring in the desert
event Across the road
from Sharjah Corniche, nestled behind the narrow lanes that house apartments
and shops showcasing an assortment of wares and services, stands Saila
Grocery, a small supermarket that makes no pretensions of offering anything
but the most basic of food items. Its clientele comes from
the neighbourhood and comprises the very same customers who patronise Al
Abyad Salon next door, where one can watch a Malayalam movie, catch up on the
local neighbourhood gossip and find out what’s happening in one’s native
village in Kerala, all while enjoying a leisurely shave. For the next few weeks, the
denizens of this locality also find themselves living next to incredibly
spectacular works of art done by some of the art world’s most gifted
individuals. As part of the Sharjah Biennial 11, works by over 100 artists,
filmmakers, performers, musicians, and architects from 41 countries can be
seen displayed in neighbourhoods such as these in and around the city’s
Heritage Area. The theme for the event
this year is ‘Re:emerge, Towards a New Cultural Cartography.’ Open to the
general public (and with no entrance fee), the biennial, which runs till May
13, has been drawing large and truly diverse crowds keen to explore and
experience the art works on offer. The exhibitions in the Heritage Area are
housed inside old buildings that have been expertly restored and returned to
the city where they continue to play an important ‘organic’ role in the
space they occupy and around which commercial, residential, and artistic
activities intersperse and meld in the same way as they did in days of yore. Surrounded by one of the
city’s oldest and largest commercial centres, the various art installations
both within and outside the museums — and in adjacent public areas — are
visited by a cross-section of society. On weekends, it is not uncommon to see
a multicultural crowd making its way through the various exhibits: corporate
executives, blue-collar workers, high school students, tourists, families,
South Asians, Arabs, Europeans… And this diversity is
reflected in the range of artists and art on offer. A stunning 3-channel HD
animation entitled ‘Parallax ’by renowned Pakistani-American artist
Shahzia Sikander is one of the highlights of the event. The piece focuses on
Sharjah’s location on the Strait of Hormuz as well as the area’s
historical power tensions and explores ideas of control and conflict.
“Drawings and paintings were used to construct the work, combining the
handmade with the digital and lending old motifs and symbols a newly shifting
identity,” reads the description. The result is a powerful 12-minute
animation that overwhelms the senses with its imagery, colour and nuanced
symbolism. Across the courtyard from
Sikander’s ‘Parallax’ lies another magical world entitled ‘The
Prediction Machine.’ This painting installation by the talented Sudanese
artist Mohamed Ali Fadlabi was commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation and
takes one on an exceptional visual journey. The work is described as telling
“stories of saints and superheroes” and “references Ethiopian church
paintings, African barber salon art, Sun Ra’s afrofuturism, retrofuturism
and music. The work questions western norms in art, the meaning of Europe
today and the persistent division between what is designated the ‘West’
and the ‘non-West.’” Courtyards in this part of
the world have always played an important role in the interplay of public and
private space. The Heritage Area is no exception. In fact, the Japanese
curator of the event, Yuko Hasegawa used the courtyard in Islamic
architecture, especially the historical courtyards of Sharjah, as an
inspiration. For the biennial, “the
courtyard as an experiential and experimental space comes to mirror something
of Sharjah as a vital zone of creativity, transmission, and
transformation.” It is this interaction
between unhindered public access and tangible, dynamic, ideas from the world
of art that make events such as this unique in this region. The city keeps
its old, familiar, venerated public spaces intact and reserves them
exclusively to showcase values that play an integral part in what gives this
geography its distinct character. And it does so in a comprehensively
inclusive way, encouraging its suburbs to return to the heart of the ‘old
city’ where time and space have grown together, over scores of decades,
resulting in a realm that is organic and rich in multiplicity. Walking around the various
sections of the biennial, you realise that courtyards are, indeed, the stars
of the show. Using acrylic, aluminium and steel, Japanese artists Kazuyo
Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have created an eye-catching pavilion entitled
‘Bubble’ set up in Calligraphy Square. Across the street and a 10-minute
walk away, a large, black oddly-shaped structure invites one in (one person
at a time and sans one’s shoes!) to experience a multi-layered world of
mirrors that is guaranteed to transport one away from even oneself. Designed
by German artist Thilo Frank,’ Infinite Rock’ uses steel, aluminium,
fabric, glass mirrors, wood, rope, light, and a swing to turn the courtyard
that houses it into a veritable ‘transporter device.’ Mini oases adorned
with date trees that provide shade and refuge along with white wooden
benches, where visitors can sit and relax, have been placed strategically all
around; the rural brought into the urban, with accoutrements that reflect
both realities. During the opening days of
the biennial, the winding alleyways of the Heritage Area echoed with music
from around the world. Renowned Pakistani qawwals Farid Ayaz and Abu Mohammed
drew an appreciative, multinational audience every time they performed the
15-minute piece they had written especially for the occasion. Few weeks hence, when the
biennial comes to a close and the installation pieces have been dismantled
and removed, the hustle and bustle will lessen but only just. As arguably the
most interesting and lively district in the country, the Heritage Area does
not rely on large-scale events to draw in crowds. Its local populace is
vibrant enough to keep its ‘natural’ state pulsating. And that, perhaps,
is why its many public spaces — its courtyards — will always be
repositories of vibrant multicultural narratives. caption The lanes around the
Heritage Area. caption A section of Mohamed Ali
Fadlabi’s stunning painting installation ‘The Prediction Machine’. caption A visitor walks past Shiro
Takatani’s Composition. caption Bubble by Kazuyo Sejima and
Ryue Nishizawa. caption Farid Ayaz.
Spring
in the desert Seeing Thal in
spring last week reminded me of a poem by Pablo Neruda:”I want to do with
you what spring does with the cherry trees.” What spring does with cherries
in the land of Neruda, it has done with Khagal in the desert of Thal. Khagal) is a hardy tree
(and shrub) with feathery foliage, an erect stem and pinkish flowers — it
grows faster than any other species in the arid tract. It withstands extreme
weathers and resists spells of successive droughts — a symbol of resistance
in desert. Locals say this is a tree
which sings and dances in the wind. It shelters you in the sun and shows you
the elusive shades of sand. The ongoing spring has brought a unique
youthfulness to Thal with orchards of Khagal singing the songs of serenity
— it was mesmerising. Khooh Bahadar Lashari Wala,
a small village of about 15 households in Tehsil Chobara of district Layyah,
was hosting a wedding party bringing together local artists, singers, poets
and performers. The old and the young, women and children, the locals and
visitors; all bound in the bond of celebration — dance, music and madness. The life in deserts is
weaved around natural ponds (tobas) or wells (khooh); it is one of those
wells which brought a Lashari tribe of shepherds together and they settled
there. The well is named after the forefather of the Lashari tribe. Locals
tell that there was no concept of four walls in their village two decades
ago. There were only mud houses made of local material and shared courtyards.
“It’s changing now, but
still the shared value of belongingness is there at least in the village,”
said a local resident. In essence Thal might be a
desert but in appearance it was not — at least in this spring. The colour
of the standing crops of wheat was turning golden from green. The large
tracts of gram (chana) were making it hard to believe that you were standing
in the middle of shifting sand dunes. Only the naked and pale trees of
Shareenh were the exception, giving you a little sense of dreariness
associated with deserts — but this was an isolated sight. Ashu Lal Faqir, a legendary
poet of Seraiki, was the centre of attraction for all and sundry. Everyone
wanted to dance with him and listen to his poetry.
Ashu Lal’s poetry is treated like a cult among the impressionist
Seraikis. Ashu Lal is also respected as a veteran conservationist in the
area. Farooq Mehram sings Ashu
Lal’s poetry. He hails from Taunsa and earns his livelihood by painting
graffiti and teaching calligraphy to the local youth. “I sing only for
myself, not for livelihood,” Mehram rebuffed my journalistic curiosity. Sitting in a thickly
knitted orchard of Khagal, he sang and sang so indulgently that you failed to
distinguish who was singing: Khagal or Farooq Mehram. It was a complete
unison of poetry, recitation and the landscape. Mehram paused and told a
story that signifies a creeping cultural disconnect in our society. “There
is a woman in our town who comes from a mirasi family. She is a single parent
and has brought up her children by beating a dhol in and around the town. She
would earn by going to various festivals and weddings with her dhol and
performing there. The woman sent one of her sons to Iran for religious
education. On the completion of his education, her son returned home and the
first thing he did was to break the dhol of her mother. “Jah way zalma,
jain taikoon parhaya, toon oon koon hi bhan chorrhiya (cruel, you broke the
thing which nurtured you),” she felt betrayed and humiliated by her son. “It is pathetic that we
are betraying and humiliating our nurturers,” said Mehram and exploded into
self-ridiculing laughter and distributed a bush of fresh chana to a group of
his audience sitting on sand. “Enjoy the blessings of mother earth.” We had to get up to leave
for our homes. Thal has done to us what spring does to cherries. The orchards
of Khagal, the captivating fields of chana, the pale Shareenh and their
shallow petals, the greening sand dunes, the standing crops of wheat and
spring breeze of Thal, coupled with the poetry of Ashu Lal, music of Mehram
and the warmth of Mazhar Nawaz’s hospitality made it the rarest spring for
me. This was a point where I
saw Neruda meeting Ashu Lal and a soul meeting another soul — it was sheer
celebration in these times of agony.
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