Jhuley Lal is a syncretic water deity of Sindh, variously conflated with Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, Khwaja Khizr and Varuna. A saviour and a unifying force for communities, Jhuley Lal personifies the waters of the river Indus, from which he is believed to have emerged and upon which he rides atop a pure white lotus blossom resting on a palla fish.

His spirit certainly seems to permeate the halls on the first floor of the Mohatta Palace Museum, where a brilliantly curated exhibition speaks to the notion of resurrection.

’Jhuley Lal: Crafting the Contemporary’ is a complex show that demonstrates how revival of heritage craft skills may provide a way forward in the aftermath of fortuitous calamity. The waters from the floods of 2022 drowned massive areas of Sindh. The losses included the instruments and livelihood of traditional craftsfolk, as their studios became waterlogged.

Spurred by the idea of regeneration, a residency project developed by curator Saima Zaidi was held in Shikarpur in November 2023. Artists and designers from Pakistan and the UK, and craftspeople from Khairpur, Shikarpur and Karachi interacted with one another to infuse traditional working methods with innovative tweaks in design.

The outputs of this resurrectionary synergy are the 19 projects that form the exhibition. The enduring beauty and utility of crafts through the lens of creativity rather than tragedy is underscored by the works.

The distinctive craftsmanship of Sindh takes centre stage at a brilliantly curated exhibition at the Mohatta Palace Museum that focuses on innovative regeneration after loss

The walls of the display rooms at Mohatta have been painted indigo blue to psychologically submerge the viewer into a riverine world. The elemental quality of water as a life-giving force is reinforced by the range of craftworks on display, as the diverse materials used to construct the projects (grass, wood, clay, cloth and metal) all owe their existence to water, in direct or indirect ways.

A niche at the entrance of the show is painted deep red. It hints at the terminology of ‘lal’ [red] in the name of Jhuley Lal, as well as in Lal Shahbaz Qalandar. The niche displays small architectural ornaments, such as a conch-shaped botanical flourish, an intricately carved wooden fish, and a marble lotus. The iconography of Jhuley Lal is captured through this assemblage of items, which have been salvaged from building debris being sold as junk in Shikarpur.

Two conceptual programmes underlie the projects in the show. One is the idea of regenerative metamorphosis, and the other is the stylistic notion of composite parts forming the whole. Both concepts are integral to the material content and design development.

The metamorphic properties of water are inherent in the growth of plants that yield raw materials, which are then transformed into art. Thus rushes become woven baskets, trees become timber to be carved and shaped for myriad uses, and clay becomes brick. Crafted objects inherently contain processes of natural metamorphosis, to which the artisan’s hand adds a further handmade layer. This historicises raw material into cultural production.

A sound art piece by Haniya Aslam is part of the show. It captures the dual worlds of nature and culture — the tapping of the craftsman’s chisel is the auditory refrain from within the studio, and the chirping of birds outside forms a soft background note.

Wood encaps­ulates a long time span in its formation. It is naturally the material of choice in several projects. Family Portrait (conceptualised by Nele Bergmans and Shaukat Ali Khokhar) displays carved wooden objects retrieved from warehouses in Shikarpur. An unusual, hollowed container with a lid made with two-toned sheesham wood mimics the industrially produced water cooler, which is ubiquitous in homes and studios. As objet d’art, this artful rendition proclaims the independence of the artwork from utilitarian function.

Shatranj Ke Khilari [The Chess Players] is designed by Saima Zaidi and Zara Ebrahim in sheesham wood with touches of brass. The entire structure fits like a jigsaw puzzle, with dozens of handcrafted components, including the individual squares, the pieces and the stand. A prototype of the chessboard replaces the chess figures with counters that are embossed with the motifs found on Ajrak cloth.

The largest object on display is a majestic Jacquard loom, which uses a binary code punched into cards to weave patterns into cloth. The invention of Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard, the machine flourished in Benares (Varanasi), where complex patterns were woven with silk and gold and silver threads into brocade and became an identifier for banarasi silk.

The intricate construction of the loom is mesmerising to behold. Artists Irene Albino and Muzammil Raheel collaborated to develop a new punch code, to generate a pattern in the traditional aab-e-rawaan, or floating water, style that was popularly used for muslins. The work based on their design is in progress on the loom. The silver threads are suggestive of the sun’s shimmer on water and of the metallic shine on the scales of fish, such as the one Jhuley Lal rides on the river.

Shaukat Ali Khokhar’s metal disc installation, titled The Circular Paradigm, is mounted in the same hall as the Jacquard loom. The contemporary metal design of the discs converses with the traditional metal threadwork on fabric items also on display in the same hall.

As a member of the Shikarpur Residency, artist-photographer Arif Mahmood documented his sojourn in a series of black-and-white photographs called The Vanishing Patterns. With this poignant title, he links the close connection between photography and memory. The visuals include a village woman in her coconut grove, flourishes on Shikarpur’s building facades, dappled light and shadow within interior rooms, and craftsworker families who have engaged in the Jhuley Lal project. The images are a philosophical reflection on the loss and retrieval of transient reality.

From the smallest to the largest item in the exhibition, there is a palpable sense of its significance to society. The great collision between forces of destruction and regeneration is fought on the front of memory, transmitted knowledge and innovation.

As Jhuley Lal swings between the opposing banks of past and present, the river’s flow reassures us of a future that is being salvaged by art and craft.

‘Jhuley Lal: Crafting the Contemporary’ is on display at the Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi from May 17-August 15, 2024. It is a collaboration between Mohatta Palace, Karachi with Numaish-Karachi and THISS Studio, London. A part of this exhibition will travel to the London Design Festival 2024. Supported by the British Council, Pakistan

The writer is an independent researcher, writer, art critic and curator based in Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 16th, 2024