ISLAMABAD: A new exhibition highlighting the environmental crisis of fast disappearing jungles opened at the Marriott Hotel on Thursday.

More than a dozen artists depicted jungles as Earth’s oldest living ecosystems, with some surviving in their present form for at least 70 million years.

Each artist at the exhibition titled Jungle depicted how they saw the jungle and its endangered inhabitants through their artworks.

The group show featured 15 different artists who have worked with different mediums, including sculpture.

Visual artist Mohammad Umar’s gel pen on paper draws attention to man’s innate need to affiliate with other lives, such as plants and the animal kingdom.

“My body of work mainly presents a reflection of the panoramic view of life, offering insight into nature, people’s behaviour and their psychology taken from varied socio-ethnic settings,” he said.

In her impression, National College of Arts (NCA) Rawalpindi graduate Mahjabeen Mirza’s work, titled ‘I Hope’, depicts a positive message of hope, the protection of wildlife and the environment.

Xainb Fahad’s impressions include glimpses of people and places. Her works include abstracts, figurative paintings and calligraphies, all infused with a combination of vibrant hues.

Her ‘The Zebra’ series represents the individual in a herd comprising of both community and freedom; balance and individualism.

Beenish Khalid’s ‘Placement – Displacement’ and ‘Memory – Erasure’ is a series that revolves around the concerns of emotional displacement in a time of upheaval.

“The freedom and sensitivity which are the hallmarks of someone’s personality are shattered due to the constant pressures and moulded in a way to form new grounds. These grounds thus become a new home and this continuous entanglement of formations and patterns of a new world emerges,” she said.

Describing her image, she said that the rebirth of the emotional and internal self was like the feeling of a fish when put back in water after a catch.

“The fish is reborn with new motives and sentiments. This then becomes a personal and socio-cultural narrative of one’s self, defining the turmoil of the imaginary thinker of the present and soulful self of the times to come,” she said in her statement.

Silwat Mumtaz commented on the unusually intense bushfires that burned across Australia.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2020