KARACHI: English romantic poet John Keats in his masterpiece Ode to a Nightingale uses the phrase ‘charm’d magic casements’ which, to date, is a subject of great debate and open to interpretation. One obvious meaning that critics have gleaned out of it is that the bird’s sweet voice has cast a spell on casements or windows opening into a fairy world.

This suggests that ‘window’ is a potent metaphor of possibilities. A group show titled An Ode to Windows at the Chawkandi Art Gallery whose preview took place on Thursday and will formally begin on Oct 5, works along the same lines.

The intelligent thing that the organisers of the exhibition have done is that they’ve set the above-mentioned metaphor in a contemporary situation. What is that situation? Answer: the fact that Covid-19 has forced people to be confined to the four walls of their homes. While this sounds like a debilitating development, it has also offered new paths to tread in a paradigm that’s now being called the ‘new normal’.

The group show will formally open at Chawkandi Art Gallery next week

In order to give a clearer perspective to the viewer, the first part of the statement provided by the gallery reads: “After December 2019, everyday life has changed for those on planet earth. Looking outside the windows became very relevant as never before. It is almost as if the closed doors during the pandemic allowed more windows to open; almost becoming a symbol of hope in these uncertain times.”

Going by this train of thought, the seven participating artists — Farah Anwar, Fatima Khalid, Hadiqa Arshad, Masuma H Khwaja, Naheed Afridi, Romila Kareem and Raheela Abro — have construed the view outside or inside a window in their distinct styles with diverse subjective approaches. For example, if one of them has tried to delve into the past to get a sense of the present, another strives to see through the same by virtue of childhood experiences. Then there is an attempt at examining the space between public and private lives of individuals, accompanied by lovely artworks where music and affinity with nature come into play. And all of that is being done by making windows the main point of reference. Consequently, creative pursuit turns into a realistic domain that’s pleasing to the eye, having intriguing back stories and interesting ideas for the future.

The exhibition concludes on Oct 12.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2021