KARACHI: It is difficult to say what the one defining moment in Pakistan’s recent history was which shocked the entire country and made it review the sociopolitical direction it was moving in. But no one would debate the fact that the Peshawar school attack in 2014 stunned and saddened Pakistanis like no other incident, and the sadness will not go away for a long, long time.

There wasn’t a single dry eye that day. As a result, today, unfortunately, children are taught and advised what to do if such a thing happens on their school premises. An exhibition of Madiha Hyder’s artworks titled Beyond Innocence which opened at the Canvas Art Gallery on Tuesday touches upon this very subject with a fair degree of understanding and insightfulness.

The visual and verbal vocabulary that the artist employs (hide n’ seek, spread your wings etc) creates a thematic and holistic imagery for the show. It straddles two worlds: of innocence and violence. The children are at the heart of the exhibits having the requisite paraphernalia of schoolchildren. It should signify a world without worries. It does not. The sense of forebodingness is palpable. Unease surrounds the frames.

Madiha begins with a piece called ‘Hide n’ Seek’ (Oil on canvas). What the viewer immediately notices is the pair of scissors in the young student’s hands. That’s not it. The steely resolve in the child’s eyes is the real attention-grabber. This is the technique that the artist seems to have put to good use — conjuring a certain atmosphere by virtue of gestures and looks, using tangible things (toy guns and shearing tools) as a way to find meaning in those signals. For instance, in ‘Back to School’ (oil on paper) the steely resolve in the eyes is there, but with a disturbing tinge of fear.

The exhibition will run until May 5.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2016