The Tarantata, 2021
Region of Puglia, Southern Italy
Stills from the film and performance, Tarantata
Corresponding Essay: The Tarantata Script and Narration
In October 2020 I was accepted into Domus Art Residency in Southern Italy. Domus is an international eco-feminist residence based in the baroque town of Galatina, dedicated to the Mediterranean and South.
I’ve carried a particular anger in me as far back as I can remember. When I was really young, between the ages of maybe 9 or 10, it would really irk me to see men and young boys, dancing on the streets every year on Pakistan’s independence day or on new years eve. The traffic would be blocked and I just remember sitting in the car watching not being able to get off, feeling really angry. very aware of my sex and body. I think I was very young to realize the limitations of my sex, and my existence as a girl. I was too young to realize that I’ll never have the freedom that they have and that anger has stayed with me to this day.
As a young girl I used to practice Kathak. But my despondency led me to abandon the practice. I couldn’t appreciate the craft for what it was. I was always running away I didn’t take it seriously. I think deep down knew that nothing was going to come out of this practice because of all the difficulties surrounding the profession. A lot of this anger that I felt and frustration towards the world I began to internalize it.In many ways my relationship to dance mirrors my relationship to self. I have found myself at odds with my body at different times, restricted and limited in movement, physically and mentally, and sometimes living in self-doubt. My entire practice as an artist has been about this struggle. And I think that is why The Tarantata resonated with me so much.
The sexualization of the female body has robbed us of an authentic experience that is full and free. Dance as a woman is only accessible to me in certain spaces, in certain ways, and under certain conditions. Always under scrutiny and judgement. This is an apt description of what life looks like in general for a woman. The realization that this was my curse as a woman in Pakistan was oppressing. I suppose that is the role it is playing in this project, that of an analogy of being.
It really has nothing to do with the technicalities of dance or the genre. In this project its just a medium. The rhythms that live in our body actually come from the same patterns we see in the world, in nature. And Dance can serve as a language to connect with nature and those parts we have shunned or forgotten. In movement we can disconnect us from this world, from conditioning, expectations, and even the way we view ourselves. We’re able to just be.In dance the body continually tries to free itself from itself. In that sense it takes on the expression of a paradox, which is unresolvable and so its infinite, infinite in its possibilities. and That makes it complete in its freedom. The truest, and most authentic expression of freedom can be found in nature, in animals, in landscape. And that includes our own footprint. We are nature, but we often forget this part of ourselves.
I think the project itself is simply using dance as medium to have a conversation with landscape, the landscape of this region, of Salento about freedom. and the potential loss of it. When I was a teenager, I went to Baba Shah Jamals shrine for the first time. For the festival. I remember feeling very excited because I thought I was going to participate in this spiritual experience. But when we got there my sister and I were immediately asked to step into this contraption with bars, almost like a cage. And we were told that it was for our own safety and protection and that we had to watch the dhammal from inside. I suppose all these feelings, and anger, came back from when I was younger watching those boys dance on independence day. Because it felt like okay I’m watching life happen infront of me again and not being able to participate.
I think since then things have improved. But even now if you go to one of these festivals, and you see women participating, they are segregrated. They are either separated from the main crowd. If you do find women front and center they’re usually older and you know they’ve taken a conscious act of taking space because there’s always risk involved. It is unnatural not to express anguish, to not release pain from the body. That untapped potential, the possibilities we have to sometimes forgoe, which can be as small as an evening walk in the park or as traumatic as being forced into a marriage, manifests as anger, resentment, pain and self-doubt. As these experiences accrue over the course of our lives, so do the feelings. Doing these performances was about experiencing that sense of freedom that I really want to access.
The personal is always political. When women do try to voice their anger, either vocally, through expression or physically, or through their creativity there’s a tendency to brand them as crazy, hysterical, aggressive, wild, sexual. There is a direct correlation between how our bodies are seen and how history views us . This idea that the female body is fragile and pure it tends to victimize and exoticize the female experience. In reality the story is always one of resilience, but because the narrators have generally been men, that part of the story gets left out. It is really only now that I understand and appreciate those years of practicing kathak. Investigating the history of Kathak dance has revealed something about my own story as a South Asian woman. That actually, Kathak used to be a profession and craft that was respected. That women had a public space to practice it. That Dance and music held cultural significance to the people of this land once upon a time. It was only when the British banned the practice during colonization in the 1800’s, labeling it immodest and actually sexualizing it, that the perception of the practice changed. That’s would took away the space that was once available to women – and the impact of that is effecting my life and story 150 years later. there’s risk of erasure, there’s risk of being forgotten. Or we face the same fate as the Olive tree. In my own story I was seeing myself as a victim of my context in Pakistan. I had bought into the narrative that was written for me. Dance has always been an integral part of who we are as a people – and those spaces existed for women as well as men. We can find remnants of that past if we try to look for them. The problem lies in forgetting, in disconnecting from who we once were.
I want to communicate to people the experience of being free and female and also really experiencing it for myself. Its an attempt at changing a sad story into a powerful one.
The Nautch, 2019
London, United Kingdom
Displayed as Photo Series and Sound Installation at COMO Museum, November 2021
Corresponding essay: The Nautch
Last year, when I was in London completing my master’s in art, I was told by my peers and teachers that I must go to art galleries to look at art and mingle with people, be inspired, and become a part of the art community – that was the best thing I could do to jumpstart my career. So, over the course of the year, I went to all the openings I could possibly go to and saw art at most national galleries and museums.
However, by the end of it, instead of feeling inspired I was left feeling disenchanted, discouraged, and alone. I couldn’t put my finger on the Why, but it became clear to me and my body that openings in Mayfair were only meant for a certain kind of people, belonging to a certain class. I always felt the atmosphere intimidating, for I would seldom see people of color around, even if the artist being shown was of color. It made sense, since the people who could afford to buy the art or talk about the art (by way of access to good education, particularly in the arts) were people who came from privilege- and so white. It became hard to hold a conversation with someone at one of these events without being aware of my accent, South Asian-ness, and otherness – which ironically seemed to be the only thing that made me interesting as an artist or not interesting at all – as I wasn’t trained in miniature. Swinging between too brown or not brown enough, at times I would doubt myself and think I’m being overly critical or imagining things, that the insecurities arising from the post-colonial baggage I’m carrying are somehow my responsibility. But then my body was saying something else – it was saying “this doesn’t feel right”
And the body is always right, since it responds from the most authentic place.
I felt the same when simply looking at art. Everywhere I went, somehow art by people of color was always shown in the context of their identity. The discourse, when it comes to artists of color, tends to contextualize their practice in relation to their race, ethnicity or background, without looking at what they’re trying to do within the work and then bringing them into the canon - which has the effect of placing them outside of it. So, it was always easy to see a show with all black artists or go to a gallery that especially shows South Asian artists, but I could hardly find any shows that exhibited these artists within the canon, along with everyone else, stripped off of this otherness. It gave the impression that it is the only thing that defines them. Maybe I missed some of the shows that did try to change this, but by and large, they were in the minority because this was my experience over a span of a year. Much of this made sense when I realized that my professors knew little about South Asian artists, and the only time I came across them in academic writing was when I searched for them myself – despite the fact that the very same college had produced internationally renowned South Asian artists such as Naiza Khan. I especially felt the pain of this when I walked across the halls in the National Portrait Gallery. I realized that so much of my history is tied to the people that are hanging on those walls, as a way of celebrating people who are in many ways responsible for this weight that I am feeling, and yet it was hard to find portraits of people from South Asia that I could relate to or look up to, as if our side of history, which is also their history, never existed - except for when one wants to see the Kohi-noor at The Tower of London or find an “exclusive” exhibition on “glorious Mughal history”.
When I began to really think about this, I realized that I had had the same bodily experience in other public spaces across London – like in the underground or outside regent street - and it reminded me of The Rimbaud Series by David Wojnarowicz. In the Rimbaud Series, David took photographs of himself and his friends who identified as queer, wearing the poet Arthur Rimbaud’s mask, in different locations across Manhattan, places that had triggered feelings of alienation. By taking on Rimbaud’s face, who lived in the 18th century, David was essentially taking on his identity and highlighting the parallels in their lives: the violence suffered in their youths, the feeling of being denied freedom, the desire to live far away from the bourgeois environment and the fact of their homosexuality. He was juxtaposing the historical time of the symbolist poet with his present. The work gives the impression of being lonely, lost, and displaced; experiences that Wojnarowicz aimed to highlight in the context of what was happening to the LGBT community at the time.
The performative aspect of the work was very appealing to me. The way in which he put on the mask and went to these places to get photographed, in front of an audience, was a dramatic staging of the experience of how queer men had to put on a façade or act to fit into these spaces. In a way he was reenacting the lived experience of being marginalized and displaced as a queer person. The physical act of putting on the mask immediately separated him from those around him. It allowed engagement with an audience in these spaces without directly speaking to them, as the onlookers watched when he wore the mask and got photographed. While this performative reenactment of lived experience was an attempt at highlighting the emotional and physical aspects of that experience, it was also an attempt to subvert and protest that experience.
Inspired by this series I decided to do my own performance, using the same framework but applying it differently to reflect the core ideas underpinning my work on the construction of South Asian female subjectivity. When I started my research to put together this performance, I began to look at some of these spaces, including The Liberty, in a deeper way and found new insights that shed light on darker truths, which then inspired the work itself. The Liberty is one of the most expensive and exclusive department stores in London, primarily dealing in fabrics and designer wear, and has been around for over 200 years. In 1885, an exhibition was held at the Liberty in which 60 villagers from India, including a number of Nautch dancers, were brought to London and put on display, as if to transport an entire village intact, in order to bring in more British customers to shop. Coming across this news article in the archives and then visiting the Liberty as it stands today ignited the same feeling of discomfort that took over me when I had to present myself at Mayfair galleries and other spaces in and around London.
It was then easy to imagine myself standing in front of The Liberty, in the same kind of clothes that the Nautch wore, as a sort of mask that I could identify with, and then stage a dramatic reenactment of the Nautch on display all those years ago. Like David in the Rimbaud Series – and with the help of my dear friend Amelia Qasir, I photographed myself in all the places I felt alienated in some way or the other, wearing my Angrakha, Churri Dar pajama, Khussa’s and jewelry – the things that make me “traditional”, “exotic”, “beautiful”, “colorful”, of color, other, and the things that immediately separated me from the audience. Interestingly, the very hypothesis I was testing was proven true when we managed to catch turned heads and questionable looks in the camera. Just to test this further I also performed in Whitechapel – a place that often transports me to liberty market in my hometown Lahore. Here no one looked or cared, and I easily blended in with the crowd. What we weren’t able to capture sadly, were the cops who started yelling at me for taking photographs on the footpath in front of the Ritz – and wouldn’t stop yelling till Amelia stepped in - in her everyday wear, or the admin lady from the Royal Academy of the Arts who asked us not to do a “photoshoot” and leave, and the guy who turned around and told me I looked beautiful in my “saari”!
The Bride, 2020
Performed at Laal Jadoo (Red Magic), Karachi, Pakistan, curated by Amin Gulgee
2 Hours 30 min
Corresponding Essay: The Bride
The first fundamental colour, red is the shade of love and war, of passion and power, of desire and danger. For centuries now, red has been the colour of marriage in the Indian subcontinent. Considered auspicious and pure, it stands as the traditional colour worn by brides, as a symbol of beauty, wealth, and a prosperous future.
In ceremony, a bride sitting on a stage in red, heavily worked attire and decadent jewelry is a display of these symbols. However, what they lack in their revelations is their duality; that with the hope of beauty, wealth and prosperity comes the burden of sacrifice of Self, in which case the color Red begins to symbolize pain.
As such the red bride on display becomes a contested sight, one that represents a false freedom. For my performance act I wanted to use this opportunity to demonstrate the embodied experience of this contested space – the space of in-between. A bride sits on a chair as if on a stage, adorned with jewellery and heavily worked red clothes. At first glance she seems at ease in her state, until she tries to get up from the chair but can’t because of the masked chains that tie her to it. Every few minutes she tries to get up but ultimately has to sit back down, unable to free herself from the heavy attire and chains that weigh her down.
I use stories of female experiences and spaces as a way of reframing the colonial gaze and subverting the male gaze. This act challenges the audience to shift perspective.
De’voilez, 2019
Performed at Cite’ De Arts International, Paris, France
1 Hour
Corresponding Essay
In 1957 during the Algerian war of Independence, special ceremonies were staged across Algeria, in which wives of French colonial officers unveiled Algerian women in public to demonstrate how Muslim women had been won over to European values and away from the independence struggle. The unveilings were publicised and presented to the government in Paris as spontaneous acts. This poster shown in the first image was part of the propaganda. Historians would later find that some of the women who participated in these ceremonies never even wore the veil before. Others were pressured by the army to participate.
Following the staged unveilings, many Algerian women began wearing the veil. They wanted to make clear that they would define the terms of their emancipation – rather than being forcefully liberated by the French colonisers. When the war of independence was won in 1963 many of these women returned to not wearing the veil.
I am reminded of this history when thinking about the recent debates about Hijab, Niqab, or Burkha across Europe. Somehow in times of crisis, the female body conveniently becomes the battleground for ideological and political warfare.
My practice is centred on understanding and contextualizing the female experience as a way of recalibrating the way non-western women are seen and represented. We have not had the opportunity to create our own subjectivity. At home we are seen through the eyes of men (as caregivers, weak, subservient) and abroad we are seen through a lens of oriental femininity (oppressed, exotic, beautiful). Over time we have internalized these forms of representation so that it’s hard to know the difference.
I use stories of female experiences and spaces as a way of reframing the colonial gaze and subverting the male gaze. For my performance act at Cite’ De Arts Internationale I wanted to use this opportunity to showcase an experience of a woman who chooses to take Hijab in a space that makes her feel uncomfortable and oppressed. Surrounded by propaganda posters from 1957 that read N’etes – vous done pas jolie? De’voilez-vous! (aren’t you pretty? Reveal yourself!), I am on my hands and knees writing “De-voilez (unveil)” in repetition as way of forcing myself to comply, similar to a child who has been punished at school. After an hour of writing and being in this uncomfortable position, my knees and hands gave away, which becomes apparent in my hand writing.
This act is an analogy for the way women are made to feel in a world that constantly uses their bodies for different agendas without acknowledging their experience of it. Whether or not the ban of the Niqab across Europe is right or wrong, the fact remains that the debate surrounding it has created an uncomfortable space for all women to exist (including women who choose not to cover at all). It has fuelled an environment that’s left South Asian and Middle eastern women feeling alienated and perpetuates the post-colonial lens through which we are seen. There is no political and/or religious statement being made here. On the contrary the idea is to remove those associations from the female experience.
