Art from the Heart

When a massive earthquake battered Pakistan in 2005, Emirati photojournalist Alia Al Shamsi went to Muzaffarabad, one of the worst affected areas in the country, with a goal to increase aid inflow. Her mission was clear: let her photos do the talking (they were printed in local daily Emarat Al Youm).

The Pakistan coverage was not a one-off; social documentaries are Alia’s forte. Sometime back, when there were talks about a demolition drive in Satwa, Alia captured the area’s familiar landmarks in an attempt to freeze them in time.

What started out as a pet project uploaded on Facebook was soon spotted by Dubai’s Tashkeel Gallery who invited her to exhibit at the Bastakiya Art Fair last month. “I wanted people to see the beauty of Satwa, not something that’s come in the way of Dubai’s development,” Alia says. “It has its own personality – like its ‘fashion movements’.

The gangster look, for instance, was the rage during the mid-90s. Likewise, back in the 60s and 70s, people walked the streets dressed in cowboy outfits, thanks to the soaring popularity of Westerns starring Clint Eastwood!”

Alia, who freelances for various publications these days, strongly feels that Satwa stands for a sub-culture of Dubai. “I’ve heard the demolition plans are currently on hold. I hope they’ll revive the area.”

Karachi-based Shakira Masood refuses to “compromise my message for the sake of a sale”. As an expressionist, she uses socio-political commentaries as the base for her work. One of her boldest works was that of Pakistan rape victim Mukhtaran Mai in 2002. ‘Rape by public consent’ was Shakira’s centrepiece, while her other works depicted the pain — and the test of endurance — Mukhtaran underwent. “A month after my show ‘Seel’ in Canada in 2005, Mukhtaran travelled there and the response post-exhibition was huge. We need to be sensitive to what’s happening around. If you reach even two people, you’ve made a difference.”

For his part, Filipino Eduardo Yap is experimenting with art by playing around with the theme of a global malaise: the recession. As head painter and art supervisor of an amusement park in Dubai, his daily interaction with construction workers allows him to “know what people around him really feel”. His painting ‘Face the Reality’ depicts himself with two others — an Indian and Pakistani — trying to come to terms with an ultimatum they’ve been handed out: either work for reduced wages or return to their respective homelands with no guarantee of a comeback. “Construction workers have been hit the worst. They’ve gone without salary for six months at times but can’t complain… only wait for a change,” he says.

Pakistani multidisciplinary artist Munawar Ali Syed is trying to set the record straight – about his country that’s been in the eye of a series of storms. Woodcarving is serving him as an outlet for venting out frustrations. “My major concern is media propaganda. The West is portrayed as liberal, while we’re supposedly fundamentalist and conservative.”

His co-exhibitor at a recent exhibition in Dubai, Abdul Jabbar Gull thinks likewise. Post 9/11, religious imagery and political symbolism characterise his work. “Superpowers display aggression to poorer countries,” he says. “My question is: who suffers the most? The common man who has nothing to do with extremism and terrorism, of course! You can’t blame an entire nation for the few offenders in it.”

Baghdad-born Hayv Kahraman talks about what ‘drives’ her: the fact she grew up in a land plagued by war ever since she was born. Hayv made the difficult decision to move to Sweden after the Gulf War, and currently lives with her husband in the US. Phoenix, Arizona. Honour killings, female genital mutilation and oppressive stereotypes are some of the issues she’s dabbled with from across her palette since her “fairly recent entry” into the field. Her piece ‘FGM’ – female genital mutilation – is easily her most challenging till date, owing to the theme’s extreme sensitivity. “I remember thinking: ‘This is such a crazy subject to paint’. It was just too painful to look at!” she says. “Eventually, I chose orchids (as representatives) because of their sensual, rare nature. I depicted petals sewn in different ways to symbolise different forms of genital mutilation. But to think that it’s happening there, in northern Iraq, even as we speak…” she trails off.

Issues that tug at heartstrings are, most often, the source of creativity — which is what makes art speak the language of reality.

karen@khaleejtimes.com