KARACHI: Public domain and accessibility are intrinsic to public art practices and a range of creative strategies add vision to the issues that resonate with the audiences. This was said by renowned art critic Niilofur Farrukh as she gave a presentation on ‘A space for reimagining public art in local and global contexts’ at an event organised by the Karachi Biennale Council at T2F on Saturday.

Ms Farrukh divided her talk into two parts. The first one dealt with the international public art practices and the second was to do with similar practices in Pakistan. She began by giving the example of the Sichuan Academy, Huxi Campus, an academy spread over 11 hills where regional and cultural identities were combined, connected with the heritage of the region. Another example she gave was of the mud structures by Not Vital in Niger. She said the artist went into caves and set up ‘whimsical’ structures with mud. Next up was the mention of the Tiuna el Fuerte Cultural Park in Caracas which won the international award for public art in 2013, followed a few other examples including that of Mourning and Remembrances by Susan Greene in response to the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

In the second segment of her presentation which was about Pakistan Ms Farrukh focused on monuments which she said the rulers of particular time periods built and eventually people took their ownership. Starting with Jehangir Kothari Parade, she called it a symbol of Karachi, though today it existed in a ‘changed form’. She then talked about Gates of Lahore which she said were originally brought by the conquerors and the Clock Tower in Faisalabad, built by the colonisers as a symbol of time. After 1947, she said, the state began to commission projects. In the 1960s, she said, dams were built in the country and public art was commissioned. Sadequain’s mural at Mangla Dam in the ‘60s and Zahurul Akhlaq’s sculptures in the ‘70s were a couple of examples. She said Sadequain created his own brand of public art with murals and exhibitions for two decades. “He engaged the public and was never far from them,” she said. Currently, she said, public space in Pakistan was a contested site on which the state, extremists and civil society were laying claim. Touching upon the topic of disrespect for monuments, she said public art had no public ownership. She said to widen the space artist began to look at culture in a dialogic space. To support her argument, she quoted from some events such as Jashn-i-Faiz and Shahana Rajani’s ‘Bachon Se Tabdeeli’ etc. She said now public art was geared more toward empowering people and artists had entered the realm of activism.

Gulraiz Khan, a lecture in design at Habib University, like Ms Farrukh, spoke on public art projects beginning with Richard Serra’s ‘Titled Arc’ in New York, which became controversial and a petition was filed against it calling it disruptive, as a result of which it was removed. Mr Khan said the artist’s response was that it was supposed to be disruptive.

Artist Masuma Halai Khwaja shed light on the Karachi Biennale’s outreach programme that included 100 art objects project. She said public art in Karachi had to resonate with people. She said Karachi was the seventh largest city in the world therefore there was a need to go to its different areas and reach out to communities. On the project, she said cable reels could be recycled into art. She said by recycling the reels into art objects we could change Karachi into one of the better cities of the world. She said that was her open call to all artists and designers to come forward. She said as part of the Karachi Biennale 2017, 100 art objects made out of cable reels would be created. They would be installed in schools, public parks, universities etc which would also sensitise people to art. She again said the Biennale was inviting artists and designers to come up with their ideas. She said there were two categories (artists could apply for both). The first was art project with one cable reel and the second was art project with two to three reels.

After her speech, the floor was opened for question and answers.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2016