LAHORE: The Alhamra Art Centre, The Mall, was a fairly happening place on Monday where a discourse with three artists attracted a large audience, the event was one of those being organised under Lahore Biennale at different venues of the city.

A number of visual art lovers, art enthusiasts, and a number of students from different art institutions came to attend ‘Art Speak’. Three international artists Kay Walkowiak, Amar Kanwar and Pamela Corey shared their views on their works with the audience.

Kay Walkowiak from Austria studied sculpture, multimedia and photography in Vienna. Walkowiak’s work concerned ideas of timeless idyllic spaces formed as a reflection upon the contrast between socio-cultural and historical discourses. He has exhibited in a number of solo and group exhibitions which include the Kunst Pavillion Innsbruck (2012), the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2014), the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, the Soulangh Art Space in Tainan, the Austrian Cultural Forum in New Delhi and the Node Gallery in Tokyo.

Mr Walkowiak discussed minimal vandalism, the western contemporary art. He also shared with the audience his short video shot in India. To him, everybody see something different in an artwork according to one’s own perception.

The other artiste and speaker was Amar Kanwar from India. Kanwar’s film and multi-media works explored the politics of power, violence and justice. His multi-layered installations originated in narratives often drawn from conflict zones and were characterised by a poetic approach to the personal, social, and political. Recent solo exhibitions of Kanwar’s work have been held at Umea, Sweden (2017), Marian Goodman Gallery, London (2017), Goethe Institute/Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai (2016), and at the Assam State Museum (2015).

The talk, ‘Hacking the Grid: Urban Interventions by Artists from Southeast Asia’ was by Pamela Nguyen Corey from London. The talk surveyed selected artworks by Dinh Q. Lê, Sung Tieu, and Khvay Samnang, artists born in Vietnam or Cambodia, who have used the city – whether Ho Chi Minh City, Berlin, or Phnom Penh – as a site, story, and medium.

Pamela Nguyen Corey is a lecturer in South East Asian Art at SOAS University of London.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2018