An exhibition of artworks by Ahmed Faizan Naveed titled Soliloquy is underway at the Full Circle Gallery.

The artist has chosen a unique give-away for his viewers to understand the gist of his effort. ‘Soliloquy’ is a word that’s not often used these days. It is a kind of a technique that old playwrights and writers employed to familiarise their readers with the inner thoughts of a character. The difference, or one of the differences, between a monologue and a soliloquy is that in the former, the character who is expressing himself/herself has listeners; but in the case of the latter, s/he is talking to himself/herself (Hamlet’s famous seven soliloquies are a fine example) in order for the audience to get the drift of his thoughts.

Naveed is doing pretty much the same, and it is not difficult to find how he has woven his plot for the story that he’s telling. It’s about nature, land and urbanisation. The idea came to him after visiting some places, and in his own words, “It is primarily raw and incomplete structures in vast landscapes that drew me. This is my response to and an observation of the dialogue generated by them.” He insists it’s a dialogue, not a document.

This is intriguing. Soliloquy and dialogue! One might find them oxymoronic. Well, in the context of the show, not really. By virtue of his soliloquising, Naveed is actually creating a conversation for those who haven’t been to or seen the structures that he’s had a chance to look at from close quarters. He supports his concerns through the media that he has framed his artworks in: ‘large-scale negatives’ impart a feel to the image (for example, ‘Tower-Water Tank’) of a work of construction that suggest either its points of beginning or sense of incompleteness. It allows the viewer to try and know their back-stories as well as their impact on nature once they get the final touches. And that has resulted in a fascinating artist-viewer dialogue.

The exhibition concludes on Sept 10.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2019