Lasting impressions
KARACHI: For artists, ignorance is not bliss. It is pain. Why? Because it is those who suffer from negligence at the hands of society that invariably move the artist community to tell their stories. One cogent example of it is an exhibition of insightful artworks by Huma Mulji titled The country of last things which is under way at the Koel Art Gallery.
The show mainly focuses, quite poignantly at that, on the lives of bakers, sanitary workers and batmen (who serve army officers). The sociological aspect of their jobs eclipses the economic side of their being, for the artist intends to travel into their past by capturing their present. In doing so, she creates a series of images which run like an art-house cinema movie that you would want to watch over and over, with a heavy heart.
The first section on display is a conversation with a baker named Karamatullah whose health is deteriorating and the authorities who hold sway in his area want his business to be shut down. The bakery has a history, but the artist doesn’t tell that through her work. She captures the workplace the way she saw it, though with a sharp sense of loss.