KARACHI: A book titled Eight was launched at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture on Monday evening.

Edited by Arshad Faruqui and Amean J, the book is premised on architectural space. As can be understood from the title, it has eight chapters bringing together an architect, a writer and a photographer in each, weaving stories told both through text and visuals, the latter based on the architects’ vision and work. An exhibition of photographs depicting the tales opened simultaneously at the Indus Valley Gallery.

The first section is captioned ‘Memories of Another Day’. Habib Fida Ali (architect), Mamun M. Adil (writer) and Emaan Rana (photographer) collaborate on the project. The word ‘memories’ gives away the theme of the segment. Adil lyrically describes the days of yore with reference to architectural poise, touching upon that cultural aspect of our lives which makes nostalgia a thing of the present.

Rana’s photography complements with aesthetic grace both Ali’s creativity and Adil’s lyricism. One shot in particular attracts the attention of art lovers. It is a narrow angle of an opening in an old house. The image comes across as if it’s done in black and white, but a couple of yellow spots, perhaps emanating from an electrical light source, elevates the picture to a level where one can interpret it in plain terms, but one would refrain from doing so.

Moyena Niazi/Khadija-tul-Kubra, Asim Akhtar and Farah Mahbub’s collaboration in ‘Secrets of Geometry’ is another noteworthy work. The juxtaposition of the animate and inanimate objects is quite interesting, in the sense that while viewing or reading this section one finds it difficult to differentiate which is which. The contributors have played with the idea of personification, cramming quite a few images together and somehow creating unity in diversity. The visuals in this chapter, in particular, are pretty eye-catching.

The other contributors are: Akeel Bilgrami, Ilona Yusuf and Arif Mahmood; Naheed Mashooqullah, Faraz Maqsood Hamidi and Momin Zafar; Arshad Faruqui, Fifi Haroon and Tapu Javeri; Najeeb Omar, Saima Zaidi and Ayaz Anis Khan; Tariq Hasan, Shandana Minhas and Amean J; Shahid Abdulla, Sumbul Khan and Farzad Bagheri.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2016