Departure (2018), Nilima Sheikh
Then there are artists who explore what Partition does to language. Among these are Ghulam Muhammad, Mehra and Waqas Ahmed, who take words and scripts and rework them. In most of their works, the dilemmas of language are represented by text that is variously cut up and reassembled — as in Muhammad’s three-dimensional collages such as ‘Untitled’ in ink on wasli, or his triptych ‘Yaad Dasht’ (Recollection) which resonates with Mehra’s three pieces entitled ‘Invisible/Visible.’
Khan explores the process of having had language imposed upon him: as a Baloch, he has to navigate both Urdu and English as a citizen of Pakistan. ‘Yaad Dasht’ evokes what qualities of expressions are lost and found in the exercise. Sometimes texts appear partially in washed-out shadows, sometimes in disjointed words. Faded biographic photographs can be seen juxtaposed with script, perhaps awaiting the moment when they may re-emerge.
Waqas Khan is more indirect. Born into a family that experienced Partition in Southern Punjab, his focus points inward. We discern many dots and dashes not (yet) emerging into verbal communication. Textures and shapes emerge, but no words at all. The pieces displayed here suggest a tentative mood with their palette of black, white and grey.
Ismail, on the other hand, ties up pain into bundles — both small and larger — situating them on panels of handwoven fabric. Sometimes the bundles are filled with seeds or lentils to represent what a devastated land can still bring forth (such as in ‘What Have They Done to My Land?’); sometimes barbed wires protrude from within them, representing pain that has no words.
A particularly striking work is ‘All My Hopes’, a large piece whose two handwoven panels of black and white cloth are visibly stitched toward the top in red cross-stitch. A large bundle sits at its foot, resting on terracotta, while mannat threads and Sufi amulets spill over and down the sides. Bombay resident Shilpa Ghosh is represented here by a sculpture, encased in glass, that is a jamdani sari, unravelled and then re-rolled into a ball. The only Bengali artist in the show, Ghosh also offers the photographic five-frame digital print, ‘Border Sky,’ which demonstrates how the sky looks on both sides of the border.
Faiza Butt’s acrylic paintings on paper teem with colour and energy. In a large diptych titled ‘My Love Plays in Heavenly Ways,’ the borders between the two halves are fluid. I was also pleasantly surprised by her ceramic black-and-white bowls titled ‘Dinner Dialogues’.