KARACHI: Flowers symbolise tender and soft facets of life. If you live in the subcontinent, it is impossible that you’re not familiar with motiyey ka phool. The motia has a zesty fragrance often used in abundance on happy occasions such as marriages. Now imagine that species used to help society understand an important issue: the difficulty that South Asian women face on a regular basis.

An exhibition of artworks made by Zahra Mansoor Hussain and Tessa Makai titled We-Sin Phool Women, which will continue till Saturday at the Chawkandi Art Gallery, highlights the very subject with aesthetic poise and artistic charm.

The instant you enter the gallery, a readily identifiable aroma greets you. You take a step back and realise it’s not a usual art show that you’re visiting. And then you read the introduction to the display put up on the wall. You get the hang of the idea, move around and look at some interesting artworks, including sculptures, which are at the heart of the whole exercise. You know that it’s to do with flowers which are called phool in Urdu; but what about the rest of the name of the show?

The artist’s statement puts things into perspective: “We Sin-phool Women is a play on the English title of Kishwar Naheed’s feminist poem Ham Guneghar Aurtein [We Sinful Women] and the Urdu word for flower phool. The show offers interplay of jasmine, muslin, and South Asian women in their voices and bodies. The work was created between New York City and Karachi.

“It explores the intricacies and hardships of femininity in South Asian public and private spaces. The dynamics of femininity are a juxtaposition of beauty and violence, and this project examines the vulnerability of what it means to exhibit femininity in public. The centrepiece of exploration is a series of sculptures created from wire mesh and motia — Arabian jasmine — flowers.

“The sculptures were placed in Karachi’s public spaces to create a performance through public interaction. Also presented in this show are self portraits painted on muslin cloth alongside ‘jasmine stories’ told by South Asian women which were performed in New York City,” it said.

The words beauty and violence should never be uttered in the same breath. This is what the two talented artists are trying to achieve in a world where violence has become a norm and beauty is treated with insouciance. Noble idea, indeed!

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2022