KARACHI: The inverted horseshoe-shaped gate with welcome written on it in big letters with different colour splashes all around led one to the most creative student art exhibition at SMB Fatima Jinnah Government School on Saturday.

The budding artists had put up a great display. An entire classroom corridor and a big hall on one side had been dedicated to art. There were paintings, village hut and bridge models, pottery and sculptures. A photo booth in the shape of a tent decorated with Sindhi handicrafts in one corner was a cool idea. It became a popular selfie booth.

On a table with several clay sculptures, two identical Mickey Mouse played with a big clay football. There were cute little clay houses on display on another table nearby. Halima Mohammad Aslam of Class 6-G also had a pretty flowering vines reaching the roof of her clay house. “The house is made of clay but the climbing plant I made by mixing colour with white flour,” she said. There was even a horse peeping out from one of the open windows on the ground floor of her house. Halima started laughing on being asked if the horse also had a name. “It’s a dog,” she corrected, adding that his name was Tommy.

Dar-i-Noor, a student of Class 8-C, seemed to be guarding outside a cave. “Caves such as this used to serve as homes for Aborigines of Australia,” she said.

There were several portraits of the Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa on a notice board ... or should we say SMB Fatima Jinnah’s Mona Lisa? As correctly pointed out Laiba Shah, a young artist from Class 5-A, on closer inspection each Mona Lisa belonged to a different culture. There was a Sindhi, Balochi, Pakhtun, Punjabi, Baltistani Mona Lisa with so many others. Laiba had painted a Memon Mona Lisa with hennaed hands and a dupatta covering her head.

One of the paintings hanging from a wall showed village life. But for some strange reason it also had a pickup truck loading milk canisters from a farm which looked very English. “I’ve never really been to a Pakistani village,” admitted Jazla M. Saleem, a student of Class 7-C.

It was also great listening to the students talk at length about the various artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, etc.

Sana Kazmi of Zindagi Trust said that they had tried to create an interest for art and artists in the children while letting them discover their own talent. “There are some here who paint really well, some who like to sculpt,” she said, adding

that they had exposed them to different forms of art while allowing them to discover their talent which could be nurtured.

The exhibition included artwork from students of the Khatoon-i-Pakistan School. There was also a musical performance by Mystery Performer Shaheer Kan, keeping the visitors and students entertained throughout.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2018