Fibre arts are a fairly recent addition to the world of fine art. Soft materials such as cloth and thread of various kinds and techniques such as weaving, sewing and embroidery are used in this particular genre. While the Modernist fibre artists explored the formal aspects and materiality of the art form, fibre art in the contemporary age are more concerned with its narrative implications and conceptual significance. No different is the case with the Pakistani fibre artist Masuma Halai Khuwaja who presented her embroidery and patchwork collages at a show called In A Different Voice: Fibre Art in a Care Narrative which took place recently in China.
The curatorial debut for Kai Liang, the first PhD in fibre art in China, and the organiser of the Fibre Art Biennale, the exhibition looked at the ways in which fibre art has contributed to narratives based on the ethics of “care”. The show had works by 20 artists from 10 countries picked by the curator through an extensive research into the current fibre art practices, for which she travelled to 20 countries and interviewed more than 100 artists. The diversity of form and technique presented within the show can be attributed to the carefully chosen artists meant to illustrate the entire range of fibre art in practice today.
Fibre artist Masuma Halai Khuwaja’s works examine the splintering of various cultures and their absorption into an emerging global culture
The material involved in fibre art is soft, delicate, elusive, rhythmic and expressive which, at times, leads to associations with femininity. Its connection with handicraft and domesticity as well as the cultural specificity of various types of fabric enables it to be used for social and cultural commentary. Khuwaja’s work looks at the splintering of various cultures and their absorption into an emerging global culture. The artist sources her fabric surfaces from various flea markets, bringing with them their historical relevance. These fabrics are intervened upon with culturally rich fabrics and embroideries from various parts of the country, which are brutally cut up and reassembled on to the fabric. This cutting-up acts as a metaphor for breaking up of traditions in a world that is increasingly homogenised in the name of globalisation, and cultures and age-old customs are labelled ‘backward’ and swallowed by a global narrative. What’s left contains remnants of history and culture. In the process, a new hybrid is created, a reconstructed memory grounded in the present.
For this particular exhibition, Khuwaja uses this technique in a slightly more geographically relevant context. The patched and sewed-on image constructed from Balochi and Sindhi embroideries over an ancient Kashmiri paisley tablecloth seem to present an instance from Chinese history, which instantly brings to mind the recent developments in Pak-China economic relations and the implications this might have for the social and cultural development of the two countries.
“In A Different Voice: Fiber Art in a Care Narrative” was held at the Visual Art Centre, Academy for Arts and Design at the Tsinghua University, Beijing, from August 25 to August 30, 2018
Published in Dawn, EOS, October 28th, 2018
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