Ways of Existing

Ways of Existing
Curated by Emaan Mahmud

Visual and pop culture profoundly shape our interactions with both ourselves and the world around us. These omnipresent messages influence how we perceive ourselves, our values, and our behaviours, often blurring the lines between reality and representation. By delving into Baudrillard's concept of simulacra and simulation, we see how cultural artifacts create hyperrealities, making it challenging to distinguish between what is real and what is artificially constructed.

In this exhibition, pop culture and kitsch play a crucial role. They highlight how mass-produced items, ideas, ideologies, and iconic symbols influence our self-perception and societal norms. This engagement aligns with Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological assertion that perception is an active, embodied process. Viewers become participants in the ongoing narrative, assigning significance to these objects.

Through this show, I want the artists to unravel our deep connection with the material world and how it shapes our existence. Are we the ones crafting visual culture, or does this culture mold how we view ourselves and our surroundings? By considering our embodied experiences with the displayed objects, we explore the complex interplay between perception, materiality, and cultural influence in our daily lives. This examination is further enriched by Bourdieu's theory of habitus, which helps us understand how our social and cultural contexts shape our perceptions and actions.

To be able to think deeply about the intricate relationship between our core selves and the material world. How do these interactions influence our perception and, ultimately, our existence?

Echoes of Time: Space, Spirit, and Stillness

This exhibition explores the subtle connections between architecture, spirituality, materiality of memory and time - reflecting on how these elements shape and influence daily life. The works encourage a deeper look at how time is experienced, not as a straightforward or linear concept, but as something fluid and ever-changing. Drawing inspiration from Henri Lefebvre’s idea of rhythmanalysis, which sees time as intertwined with space and movement, the exhibition invites viewers to reflect on the rhythms of everyday life, especially in relation to the spaces we inhabit.

These works invite viewers to question how both physical and spiritual spaces create and hold time, and how individuals navigate these particular environments. Through this lens, the works encourage contemplation of how time can be felt, expanded, or reimagined in relation to the spaces that surround one.

Curated by Malika Abbas

Bulhan Bachao

‘A Culture of Care’ which is co-curated by Taabir Noorani and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This exhibition is a project of the Bhulan Bachao initiative to create awareness and raise funds for the preservation and conservation of the indigenous wildlife of the River Indus.

AAN Art Space & Museum is supporting this wonderful project by providing support via the AAN Foundation, which remains committed to its role supporting artists and curators in exhibition making and cultural programming at the art space and museum.

‘A Culture of Care’ will focus on works of art that highlight the right to dignity for both humans as well as wildlife. Artists were invited to produce works that reflect Pakistan’s wildlife conservation, indigenous culture and traditional crafts. 

Imminence of a Revelation

The quote is part of a longer line from Jorge Luis Borges in which he says: “The imminence of a revelation which is not produced is perhaps the aesthetic event”. In cognizance of Borges’s works of magic realism and his stories that comprise mystical phenomenon and cannot be contained within any epistemological identification, it may be pedantic to endeavour to take a few of Borges’ words and crate a receptacle of an idea simple enough for a group of artists to immerse themselves in it and then fly with it. But it is a challenge worth trying.

Curated by Nafisa Rizvi

“Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” - ‘a little night music’

“Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”, (translation: ‘a little night music’, taken after Mozart’s Serenade No. 13 in G Major), is an exploration of and response to the concept of the divine dark; a period of gestation and creation, as narrated in various ancient Eastern genesis myths such as the Bundahishn, and the Old and New Testaments (among others). These textual narrations, originating from various traditions and timelines exemplify the concept of duality within existence and describe the continuous cycles of destruction, disintegration and regeneration of the earthly and hybrid creations that exist and persist through the passing of time, thus portraying forms in flux, ultimately creating a site and sight for the celebration of continuous cycles of origination and termination.

The (often metaphorical) textual descriptions instigate questions of posterity and permanence within the continuous state of dichotomous dwelling; how might we merge these mythological frameworks for deific stories and to what extent can we find webs of connectivity between these ancient stories of the past and how might we mine them for meaning in our present and for the future? The imagery therefore deals with creating connections within these timeless texts, seeking out thematic and narrative commonalities across these sacred mythologies and merging together interpretations of the elements (air, earth, fire and water), flora and fauna in tandem, tension and turmoil.

Many of these myths describe entities which are thereby moved by paradoxes (and duality); the coalescence between matter and spirit, organic growth and the static, between inanimate element and the ensouled. They are reflective of a journey that corresponds closely to our own instinctively anxious progression, from the presumed to the indefinite and from the concrete to the imagined. They urge a re-viewing and reframing of our existence through the vision of an ecologically spiritual lens, imagining the world might yet be converted to a new, spiritual and care driven sensibility. Their representations are that of transcendental knowledge and (suggested) hybridization are their visual mantra.

Reading Room - AAN x Kurachee

We are pleased to present our first conversation for our publishing practices series at the Kurachee x AAN Reading Room

Exhausted Geographies: A Conversation between Abeera Kamran, Zahra Malkani and Shahana Rajani

Exhausted Geographies is a collaborative publishing practice by Shahana Rajani, Zahra Malkani and Abeera Kamran, based in Karachi, Pakistan. It is a series of publications exploring images, text and the city. Each volume of Exhausted Geographies mobilizes a crucial, cross-disciplinary political imaginary to rethink current representations of Karachi and includes a wide range of topics that provide new insights into the social, spatial and discursive fabric of the city.

Exhausted Geographies is now 10 years old. It remains an anchoring project amongst the various practices of its core team, Shahana Rajani, Zahra Malkani and Abeera Kamran. Exhausted Geographies has proven to be fertile ground for new imaginings and streams of inquiry for its team. Shahana, Zahra and Abeera will reflect upon how invigorating a self-published project can be within an art and design career. They will share insights into their collaborative and individual practices and concerns in an open and interactive discussion.

Beautiful Nightmares

Where dreams and darkness intertwine,
A realm where fears and fantasies release,
Creating visions that are both divine.
Oh beautiful nightmares, enchanting sights,
Within the realm where shadows bloom,
Where stars ignite ethereal lights,
And moonbeams pierce the inky gloom.
Silent whispers echo through the night,
Unveiling secrets, untamed and wild,
Unleashing terrors, yet with pure delight,
For even in darkness, beauty is compiled.

-Marium Agha

The Lost River and the Rising Sea

The Lost River and the Rising Sea

Preview on 21st September, 2023 
4:00-8.00 pm

Reading by Asma Mundrawala and Sadia Salim

Exhibition continues: 21st September to 19th October, 2023

Collection of documents, words, and visuals from the edge of Cholistan. 

“The work presented emerges from the aesthetic of neglect, loss, and decay - both personal and universal.  It questions our relationship to ‘place’ at a time of rapidly transitioning ecology, as we observe a continuous and aggressive occupation of the land under the garb of progress and prosperity. It includes material found in a village home as an archive, a repository of ideas and knowledge, some of it from a century ago”. - Artist Statement by Sadia Salim

The Table 01

The TAble 01

a project space / a gathering /a feast of sorts

Saturday 25th March 2023, 12 noon to 3 pm

AAN Art Space & Museum

In conjunction with the Reading Room by Kurachee

With provocations by Ahmer Naqvi, Sohail Abdullah, Vidha Saumya, Alana Hunt, Chris Kurian, Rajyashri Goody, Samyak Ghosh and Fazal Rizvi.

A project created by Fazal Rizvi

Reading Room

Reading Room
AAN x Kurachee

A temporary reading room organized by AAN Art Space & Museum and Kurachee with collected and published art publications.

March 16th - April 20th 2023

From March 16 to April 7, AAN Art Space & Museum will be a free and accessible reading room featuring collected art publications to browse and buy. 

The publications include local art publications, zines, artist books, catalogues and more. 

Talks, workshops and discussions with Fazal Rizvi and Sophia Balagamwala to follow

If you would like to add your publication to the reading room for others to be able to see, please contact AAN Art Space & Museum.

Sweet Dreams

Curatorial Note
‘Sweet Dreams’ (translated from English as میٹھے خواب) reveals the hopes of many a Pakistani immigrant living in the city of Oslo in Norway. Questioning dreams and their link to immigration, Kazmi is questioning what transpires when a person or a family move overseas and if their aspirations of building a new home in a foreign land are actually realised or remains an elusive quest.
 
‘Sweet Dreams’ is the first chapter of Kazmi’s long term research based project ‘The Abandoned Mansions of Pakistan’ that focuses on the Pakistani diaspora in Norway, specifically in the city of Oslo. Touching on diasporic hopes around immigration, memory, nostalgia, and consumption; the research project uses a combination of architectural drawings, performance, in situ installations and image-based works to explore immigrant cuisine as a basis for   communication, knowledge dissemination and production in daily lives of immigrant communities.

This exhibition is supported by Fund for Sound and Image, Norwegian Cultural Foundation, Office for Contemporary Art Norway and AAN Foundation.
 

In The Deep End

The river is within us, the sea is all about us.

- T.S. Eliot

“The sea has many voices/ Many gods and many voices”, T.S. Eliot wrote. We first sense the world through the fluid inside our mother’s womb, we communicate with the world outside through this body of water. Once born we are really thrown into the deep end of the endless ocean we call ‘life’. Only to be consumed by it. Encountering, batting or embracing its demons and its gods. 

Oceans have held varying places in the imagination of societies, always linked to particular cultures and shifting in line with predominant world views and developing socio-economic and technological capacities. There are many ways of conceptualising the ocean, and different concepts exist concurrently, resulting in a multiplicity of perspectives that are changing over time. Water (such as the sea) thus, may become a metaphor for birth and rebirth, violence and death, self-discovery, spiritual journey, metamorphosis, change, inspiration and renewal. It becomes a language of our experience, a voice to our emotions. Its fluid nature allows it to be adaptive to each of our needs. Over and over again. Like the endless motion of the waves.

 - Malika Abbas

Chinese Whispers

‘Now that the greatest knot of fury had been undone  [... ], finally his face has become serene and radiant, his eyes clearer than ever it was in the exercise of his past reasons. What does he say?’ He said: Leave me like this, I have come full circle and I understand. The world must be read upside down. Everything makes sense now.

“The Tale of Roland Crazed with Love”
-Italo Calvino

Notes From a Familiar Place

This exhibition with these five young artists, attempts to register and document their associations and negotiations with space and place. Places that they inhabit, places that they walk and travel through, places that they investigate, excavate and dig into, places that they look at tenderly and care for, places of pain and also that of healing, places that are up-close and intimate, and others that are distant, places from their memory and places in their imaginary.

This is an exhibition in conversation with Fazal Rizvi

I AM, I AM NOT

Aisha Khalid’s retrospective entitled ‘I Am And I Am Not’ is intended to draw on her prominent artworks from 1994 to 2021, beginning with small-sized paintings, to full-scale installations, textile-based tapestries, video pieces, art books, and more towards her recent works.

As a notable woman artist, educationalist, agriculturist, and curator, Aisha Khalid has effortlessly advanced herself to become one of the most prominent artists of her day. Since the nineteen-nineties Khalid has played a key role in the art movement of contemporary neo-miniature painting, redefining miniature painting art in Pakistan and its reception worldwide. Creating dramatic conflations of pattern and geometry, which forms a field of inquiry that reflects the power dynamics, the North-South divide, as these are deeply concerned with the spiritual connections.
As the retrospective offers an opportunity to survey the multidisciplinary approach of Aisha Khalid as Pakistan’s most celebrated contemporary artist, engaged in the art that is purposeful and poignant. The art pieces reflect her deep sense of cogitation.

The Exhibition is curated by Masuma Halai Khwaja and organized by the Chawkandi Art Galley.
Sponsored by HBL. 

The Architecture of Being II