LAHORE: On the inaugural day of the three-day Faiz Festival, set to start on Feb 9, an exhibition of visual artworks by 38 women artists will also open as a part of the festival.

The title of this exhibition is espoused from line of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s ghazal ‘Dil Na Umeed Tou Nahi’ that talks about hope, struggle, resilience. This exhibition is homage to the struggle of living women artists who depicted hope and resilience in their works. The artists have used diverse mediums like oil, acrylic, natural pigments, watercolour, sculpture, ceramic, textile, fabric, printmaking, digital, video or installation art, with diverse subject matters that address the concerns of the artists going beyond gender and location. The women artists featuring in the show come from across Pakistan as well as the diaspora.

According to a statement, the feminist movement in the West created a wave around the world in the late 1960s and the women artists started looking at themselves from a different perspective. A struggle started around the globe to understand its implications. After the partition of the sub-continent in 1947, women artists in Pakistan had similar difficult circumstances or even worse than the West. The 1980s was a starting point for women artists to take a strong position in the male-dominated art and this show stands as evidence to the world around us since then. This exhibition is intended to present an overview of the last five decades of this struggle. Women from different times, ages and locations from all over Pakistan and around the world will come together to share their stories.

This exhibition is being curated by Saulat Ajmal and Sheraz Faisal (Rohtas 2 Gallery) and assisted by Asadullah Khan.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2024