KARACHI: Bringing creative imagination of artists to the city in a big way with an aim to spark the imagination of the people, the first-ever Karachi Biennale will be organised in the third quarter of 2017, said noted art critic and a member of the biennale council Niilofur Farrukh on Saturday evening.

Introducing the event to the artist community and the media at a programme held at T2F, she expressed the hope that it would engage at least 20 per cent of the city’s population.

Ms Farrukh said it took them a long time to share the details of the biennale with everyone, but it was important to have all the legal paper work done and other plans concretised first. She then showed a video film featuring short interviews of artists and curators about the significance of the biennale and the city of Karachi. The point that was highlighted in the video was that Karachi was a microcosm of Pakistan, a breeding ground for creativity, having major art galleries. The film was followed by a power-point presentation.

In the presentation, Ms Farrukh said the objective of the event was to have an interaction between the creators of art and the public. The Karachi Biennale would bring the creative imagination of the artists to the city, she said, adding that it would prove to be a source of optimism for the people, giving them a chance to move out of their daily routine lives. She said it would be as important as the Karachi Literature Festival or Napa Theatre Festival. She said Karachi had a vibrant art scene, and the event would provide a relief from other challenges of life.

Also, the aim was to put the Pakistan art scene on the international map against the backdrop of the city, she said. She explained that biennales had put cities on the map. She said the Venice Biennale started when the city was under economic duress. She said the Sao Paulo Biennale was the closest to Karachi as a model.

She added the event would also create a platform for the private sector to sustain public spaces that didn’t have funding.

On the subject of why her team had chosen Karachi, Ms Farrukh said the city had always attracted independent thinkers and its art scene was heavily under documented. She said the city had the capacity to hold major retrospectives and had created experimental and edgy art in the country.

Artist Amin Gulgee said he was the head of the curatorial team for the Karachi Biennale. On the topic of why Karachi, he said he grew up in the city. When he was a child, there was only one gallery in run by Ali Imam, he said. There were modernists like Bashir Mirza, Sadequain and Ahmed Pervez at the time who wanted to share their work abroad as well as in the local context, he said. Ahmed Pervez, he said, in his house in Gulshan-i-Iqbal had made frescoes all over, but when he passed away the government did not care for it and perhaps those frescoes were whitewashed, he said.

Camilla Chawdhary said Karachi’s artists were different from the rest of the country’s because they responded to their city. On the importance of the biennale, she said, a few people went to the art galleries despite the fact that the public was hugely responsive. Even if a small percentage of them turned up at the event, it would be a remarkable achievement, she said.

Masuma Halai and Atteqa Malik talked about the different public outreach programmes, one of which would start in Orangi next month.

Earlier, Marvi Mazhar of T2F said it was the first open house activity for Karachi Biennale. She then mentioned the names of the biennale council members.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2016