A loss, a towering barrier, a biorhythm interrupted...
Likely a survival strategy born out of the perils of this world, humans evolved into social creatures early on in their trajectory, realizing that first and foremost, their strength lies in numbers. Many of the dangers faced by our human ancestors arose from the enigma that was the natural world, an unknown and even lesser understood entity. As time progressed, humans sought to achieve social order and personal security by controlling elements of nature that could be tamed. The drive to survive, coupled with intelligence and self-preservation pushed humans to exert their power over nature, and to eventually make nature subservient–– at least that was the false self-promise . Living today in urban spaces, humans have grown further away from nature. This distance, unbeknownst to the earliest urbanites, was actually going to bring with it its own perils. As curator of Karachi Biennale 2019, I framed the curatorial lens through pressing factors such as the environment, its inextricable link to the social fabric, and the varying struggles of Karachi’s diverse and extensive public.
Karachi has an exciting, recurrent, evolving energy. Approaching her from the sea, the coast, once the lungs of the city lined with mangroves, is now a harbinger of habitat loss and ecological turmoil. Moving inward, land that miraculously supported life on the edge of a desert has been stripped and transformed into a new sort of jungle–– one of tar and concrete, ruled not by the laws of nature, but the toxins of industrial might and greed-based urban expansion. The rich and varied species of migratory birds that once flew over the coastal city annually, have altered their routes due to the surplus of high-rise buildings that obstruct their natural path. Even water, the sustenance for life, is as scarce as it is polluted. The result: human and habitat are greatly altered.
An entire body of sociological theory exists to define the struggle of urbanization. In essence, there is no one answer to the question of whether or not urban life is beneficial or reductive ; cities are too complex a phenomenon to provide a simple answer. Cities are good; the concentration of activities and diverse populations lend themselves to creativity, giving us high culture, economic opportunities, exposure, and excitement. However, urban centers and their denizens are also plagued by their fair share of issues. Population concentrations and diversity has often lead to racism; creativity can come to stagnate in the face of conformity and impersonality; economic opportunities bring exploitations, crime, and classism; while constant exposure to various stimuli and ceaseless excitement breed a certain attitude that is blasé at best, and threatening , at its worst.
Culturally and historically, Karachi is a melting pot of languages, cuisines, and the arts. I wanted to converse with her people about what holds us all together in a common thread. This led to the idea of spreading the message of ecology within the city. For KB19, besides artists, I also invited architects, gardeners, engineers, sound technicians, theatre performers and storytellers to participate because the Biennale and its very public occurrence were not only received by artists but by everyone who dwelled in Karachi. My vision was to include people from varying disciplines and the public , so that their differing voices and messages created a universal visual glossary to address pressing ecological concerns, in an experiential language that was global, enigmatic and far reaching. These varied voices came together and resonated with viewers differently. Despite the individualism of projects at KB19, before inviting artists to participate, I would familiarize myself with their practices as a whole. Practices that were already involved with ecology, and individuals whose work was cultivated specifically for the public arena were given close attention. In addition to local participants from Pakistan, I also visited studios of artists all over the world and then invited them to participate in KB19 because ‘Ecology and Environment’ is a theme that begs equal concern from any point on the globe.
As an artist myself, I recognize that the studio process is intrinsic to a body of work. It was very important to me to actively engage with the studio practice of artists, and so regardless of their locations, I made it a point to physically visit as many artist studios as possible. Some of the most memorable moments from my curatorial journey are from when I was travelling throughout Europe, engaging with artists. I would arrive at the capital city of a country and make it my mission to maximize my time there. Every day was an early start at 6 AM, when I would leave my hotel and catch a train to a nearby city, spending the day hopping from one studio to another. I would return to my hotel late every night, and the process would repeat itself the next day. These efforts resulted in 101 artists that included participants from Africa, Australia, Europe, North and South America, South and East Asia, exhibiting 99 unique projects. Out of the international artists participating in KB19, several were supported by British Council Pakistan, Goethe-Institut Pakistan, the Consulate of Italy Karachi, and Pro Helvetia New Delhi, with whom we worked closely.
Humans need nature, but fear it, and thus desire to make it subservient. As a reconciliation to this conflict that especially afflicts city-dwellers, came the proliferation of public spaces that brought nature to the cities in a sanitized manner. Kahlil Gibran beautifully encapsulates this struggle:
“We are swept into the current of urban existence, until we forget the peaceful rhythms of simple country life, which smiles in the spring, toils in the summer, reaps in autumn, rests in winter, imitating nature in all her cycles. We are wealthier than the villagers in silver or gold, but they are richer in spirit. What we sow we reap not; they reap what they sow. We are slaves of gain, and they the children of contentment. Our draught from the cup of life is mixed with bitterness and despair, fear and weariness; but they drink the pure nectar of life’s fulfilment.”
Gibran talks eloquently about the urban-pastoral living crux. The public of Karachi and that of art are two entities seldom brought together; these also create a crux that formed the basis of the KB19 curatorial mandate. With KB19, my vision was not just to invite the public to come and see the art, but instead a structure was created to go to the public that already exists in space(s). This focus created a bridge between art and the public. My mandate: instead of inviting the public into the gallery space, I would take art to the public, to areas that the public already goes to, uses, and takes ownership of. For this reason, I chose public spaces that were intrinsic to the curatorial vision, and intersected the themes of public and environment. The massive Bagh Ibne Qasim, historic Karachi Zoological Gardens, and Frere Hall served as the perfect canvas for this vision.
Every square inch of Bagh Ibne Qasim’s sprawling expanse is inundated with history and culture, and the park’s draw informed a lot of my earliest planning for KB19. Abutting Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s Mazar, home to the historic Shree Ratneshwar Mahadev temple which contains elements in sandstone donated to the city by a prominent Parsi philanthropist and most recently was the site of land reclamation and contention, Bagh Ibne Qasim’s social and geological ecosystems lent themselves to KB19 site-specific projects. Due to its sheer size, installations were divided into several clusters in the park. Both ecology and this site are synonymous with water and the sea.
The heritage Lady Lloyd Pier was a central structure for my curation at the location, as it was constructed as a walkway above the sea, but is now a harbinger of man’s effect on the planet, pushing the sea a kilometer away from where it used to thrive abundant. Where there was once water was now a nine foot high space under the pier for which projects were conceived and installed. Works included those by Pakistani artists Shahid Rassam, Nuraya Sheikh & Arshad Farooqui, and Durriya Kazi, who used this space innovatively to talk about what was and what is in the city. Artists work like, for example, Colombian Juan Pablo Echeveri’s consumerist and plastic related work was installed here to echo plastic pollution linked to the sea. Swiss artist Ursula Biemann’s video work that evinced sights and sounds from within the ocean and coastal communities, was strategically placed at the end of this space, under Lady Lloyd Pier, as a reminder of the ocean that once occupied the very space that this artwork was installed in.
I curated several works that evoked the bizarre sanitisation of nature that is prevalent in urban centres everywhere. Works by German duo REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT used a mirror to reflect the park; Swiss duo Studer van den Berg’s work was set against the backdrop of a vinyl showcasing a thick vegetation, created a juxtaposition of an indoor space that tried to emulate nature, where the works tried to subvert the actual nature that surrounded them by virtue of being in a park. At Bagh Ibne Qasim, in the absence of the sea, is manicured grass, a point underscored by Pakistani artist Seher Naveed’s floating containers installed against the green background, and the late Ussman Ghori’s work that depicted fish–– the aquatic creature and its environment absent.
Another cluster that I curated at Bagh Ibne Qasim dealt with the ecologies of objects and environments. Folke Koebberling’s video work, Susanne Kriemann’s camera obscuras and Sohail Zuberi’s swings made from driftwood and objects found at the beach, fit in with Bagh Ibne Qasim’s evolving facade. Several works that I wanted at this public space, such as Sohail Zuberi’s, were functional in a way that the layman visiting the park would be able to interact with art in a tactile manner, even if they did not recognize it as an artwork. Similarly, Basir Mahmood’s video work, which I chose to install inside the historic structure of Jehangir Kothari Parade at the entrance to the park, recalled the feel of a drive-in cinema of yesteryears, and was enjoyed as such by the public. Bringing this vision of art into the public realm required the building of infrastructure to assist the public installations, in which Qasim Ali and Gallery One were instrumental.
Melding our needs for public spaces where our socialization process can manifest, we have created zoos where we take our children to witness and safely interact with the ‘wild beasts’. In becoming their voyeurs, we see them as ferocious and raw, but in truth, they are as domesticated as us. We have let ourselves believe that nature-based, or ‘green’ consumerism or domesticating and caging birds and other animals is somehow equivalent to saving nature. Perhaps what this actually shows is that we can only enslave nature, rather than co-exist with it. On my many trips to the Karachi Zoo, previously known as Gandhi Gardens, the location prevailed as an entity in its own right. Thus, the map of the zoo informed the method of curation at this venue. When visitors went to KB19 or just to the zoo, visited and went to a particular animal’s section, they would find the real and the artist’s rendition simultaneously, side by side. In Ranu Mukherjee’s work, for example, one cage held actual birds, the adjacent section contained screens showcasing an animation of birds. My conversations with artists exhibiting work at the zoo always kept the zoo’s audience in mind, and in particular, children. For this reason, several artists took this brief in a playful manner and created work that highlighted the sanitization of animals in zoos with eccentricity, such as work by Irfan Gul Dahiri and Imran Hunzai.
In keeping with the directive of involving art in the vocabulary of the general populace, I conducted a dialogue with some artists I invited to participate in KB19, to create specific projects with the public in mind, artworks whose sensibility would thrive in this realm. As a result of this dialogue, Abdul Jabbar Gull, Hamra Abbas, Munawar Ali Syed, Nabahat Lotia and Qinza Najm & Saks Afridi created permanent installations for Bagh Ibne Qasim and Karachi Zoo that were donated to the city, forming some of the first contemporary art interventions in the Karachi scape. After the experience of KB19 and the initial interactions between the public and artworks, artists Carlo Galli, Khalil Chishtee, Mohsin Keiany, Sinta Tantra, Tamrat Gezahegne and Yassine Balbzioui also decided to donate their work, making it part of the landscape of the city. By taking art to the public, it becomes a part of living history.
Through the course of centuries, humans became closer to being more permanently settled, the nomadic way of life gave way to an agrarian way of life, from which capitalism and its subsequent consumer culture grew. Soon, in cities, the central places for socializing and engaging in consumer activities became places spouting social values and norms; it was a way to civilize people. For KB19, it was my aim to situate art and its making in the communal foray, in order to familiarize the public with it. For this reason, we kept all the KB19 locations open while installation was taking place, so that city-goers, children and students in particular would be able to see the various processes involved in this genre of exhibition making . Several KB19 projects, such as Imran Qureshi’s and RM Naeem’s works actively involved students during the installation process so that the artists of tomorrow could be inspired by working on the projects of today’s art legends.
KB19 artworks varied in nature with some requiring indoor spaces. For this reason I chose institutional galleries and universities as locations, in order to also involve students. As was the case for work installed at the public parks, the curation at the other four locations was also in keeping with the ethos of those locations. The Alliance Française Gallery housed projects with a more delicate sensibility, including works by Abdullah M I Syed and Ali Kazim. British artist Alice Kettle’s intricate but colossal work, which was made in collaboration with several communities of women embroiders across Sindh, was also installed here. Due to Kettle’s penchant for working with communities, I invited her to Karachi four months prior to the opening of KB19 to also conduct a workshop for local embroiderers from rural and underprivileged communities, and kickstart this collaborative KB19 project.
The VM Art Gallery, one of the oldest galleries in the city, held an array of work including Dawit Abebe, Dutch duo Robbie Cornelissen and Karin van Dam, Indian artist Manisha Gera Baswani whose feathered installation was a siren call to echo the disappearance of low flying bird species from the KB19 Thematic, and Canadian Libby Hague, whose woodcut print installation created an ocean, all emulated the construction of an ecosystem in a white cube space. Installed at the IVS Gallery on the grounds of an educational institute, it seemed a fitting place for a project that was heavily research-based in nature. Comprising varying disciplines, each member of the group focused on mangroves as they pertained to their practice. The final KB19 location was the colonial era Exhibition Hall at NED City Campus, a state Engineering University, which included work of a more technical and public nature, relying on technology and its intersections with art. This included works by Larissa Sansour & Soren Lind, whose film combined live motion and CGI with myth, history and fact, Abdul Halik Azeez’s work challenged notions of digital dualism, and James Alec Hardy’s work combined a multichannel video installation where sight and sound were inextricably linked, and displayed innovatively on beams of repurposed wood.
I conceptualized certain projects that were designed to become a part of the daily lives of people and run alongside them; regardless of whether the audience viewed them as art or not, art was still being assimilated into the public sphere . For example, the KB19 Book Project that was designed with children in mind, used books as a medium for the project. I approached Abid Aslam, Adeel uz Zafar, and Rabeya Jalil, to each create a book aimed at children of varying ages. These books were printed en masse and donated to thousands of children across Karachi, who could now interact with this artwork and own it as it travelled with them in its bespoke shape and form. Another unconventional project that I envisaged was the TCS Project for KB19, which was motivated by my desire to have work in the biennial that transcended a physical space or even city, and would come into contact with millions. With this idea in mind I invited Rashid Rana to make interventions to six of TCS Courier’s packaging, where he transformed it into a traveling artwork in itself. TCS's existing network formed the perfect vehicle to spread this idea across Pakistan, from Karachi in the south, all the way to Khaplu in the north, creating a project whose audience, location, reach and impact went beyond that a physical venue to art that spread across the entire length and breadth of Pakistan.
Human survival against the odds in this dangerous world and the subsequent domination of the planet is a tale of conquest and achievement . This conquest has been an exercise of controlling and curbing nature, be it Mother Nature or human nature. KB19 attempted to give a language to these myriad and global concerns, and presented them through ninety-nine experiences, interventions, and happenings.
… a study to reveal the diversity, specificity and continuity of art and ecology on the people, place, time and history of this flight.
Muhammad Zeeshan is a critically acclaimed Visual Artist, Curator and Educator who received his BFA in Miniature Painting in 2003 from the prestigious National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan. He currently serves as Head of Department-Fine Arts at the Arts Council of Pakistan and Adjunct Faculty at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi. Zeeshan has several galleries, Art Fair, museum and institutional exhibitions to his credit, including exhibitions at Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University, Abbot Hall Art Gallery at Kendal, Pacific Asia Art Museum at Pasadena, Art Gallery of Mississauga, British Museum, Gemak/Gemeente Museum, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and Metropolitan Museum at Tokyo. He has been represented at the Dubai Art Fair, India Art Fair, Hong Kong Art Basel and Pulse Art Fair. Zeeshan’s works are also a part of the permanent collection of British Museum, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Pacific Asia Art Museum at Pasadena, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,The Bunker art Space, USA, Easton Capitol collection, USA and Walton Family collection, USA. In 2023 he was commissioned by the Aga Khan Development Network and The Citizens Archive of Pakistan to create a painting of His Highness the Aga Khan, on the occasion of Aga Khan University’s milestone 40th Anniversary. With a distinct focus on honing local talent, Zeeshan’s curatorial practices heralds the dawn of a new ethos in art, one that highlights elements of concern. His curated shows are as provocative as they are evocative and they challenge the viewer to participate in unconventional ways. He has conceptualized several residencies and been a mentor to their young participants. His curatorial opus is to empower sidelined talent with opportunities and access that they may not necessarily have had access to. On this basis, Zeeshan was selected as Curator for the Karachi Biennale 2019- Pakistan’s largest international contemporary art event. Zeeshan currently lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan.