Ode to Sharjah the Gulf Today 9 May 2013
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FOCUS Shahzia Sikander (extreme left) at the Sharjah Biennial ODE TO SHARJAH MUHAMMAD YUSUF WRITES ABOUT AN ARTIST WHOSE WORKS ARE FULL OF IMPRESSIONS OF THE EMIRATE ne of the celebrities and performance to create a space ist and jostle for domination. of drawings...The music was also I put up in Sharjah. I have always who attended Sharjah that is experiential, imaginative Spheres made of hair spin and created partly in Sharjah, in col- been interested in the political Biennial 11 (SB, Mar. and poetic. sing, Christmas trees made of laboration with three local poets and the poetic. The work in Khor 13 – May 13) was Her offering falls into two valves and spools spout, while (which came about after a meet- Fakkan (Part 2) also uses poet- American-based artist parts: Part 1 titled Parallax, which undulating colour fields create ing at the poetry house in ry and drawings which were pro- Shahzia Sikander. is a 3 channel HD animation pitch and fervour and large Sharjah). jected in the abandoned cine- Widely — and and a little over 15 minutes that swaths of static noise erupt into “I invited Chinese-American ma to transform it.” deservedly — regard- focuses on Sharjah’s unique loca- flocks. Human voices recite and composer Du Yun to work on the Part 2 consists of HD-Digital ed as the person who breathed tion at the Strait of Hormuz and narrate, creating tension and music with the poets. Their inter- Projections at Khor Fakkan new life into the miniature, she the area’s historic power tensions. rhythm while oscillating between action led to my decision on Cinema, Sharjah, of C-Prints in is a one-woman powerhouse, It is inspired by the idea of con- audible texts and environmen- putting up a performance of their a series of 15 images. Sikander whose scintillating talent links flict and control where drawn ele- tal sounds. collaboration. The entire video titles it The cypress, despite its a variety of disciplines, making ments come together to create “The research visits to Sharjah animation is a symphonic visu- freedom, remains captive to the up a unique vision. For SB, she dissonance and disruption. led to all the drawings for this al poem (that is how I see it). garden. utilised drawing, animation, pho- In there, abstract, represen- work,” Sikander said. “It is an “My interest in poetry of “While visiting Sharjah in Otography, poetry, collaboration tational and textual forms coex- animation made out of hundreds course underpins all the work August 2012 as part of the process COVER STORY JESSICA SANCHEZ 08 tribute psy 04 fashion marni 16 films colin firth 10 travel glacier national park 18 bollywood bombay talkies 12 motoring honda accord 30 PLUS ASTROSCAPE, HEALTH WATCH, INFOTECH, FOOD, QUIZ, YOUNG WORLD & TALKING POINT 2 TIME OUT THE GULF TODAY / THURSDAY, MAY 9 2013 TIME OUT WEEKLY TABLOID FROM PUBLISHED BY Taryam Omran and Abdullah Omran EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Aysha Taryam ARTS EDITOR Sarah Taryam FEATURES EDITOR Nutan Sheriff CHIEF DESIGNER Ansar Saleem CHIEF SUB-EDITOR / REPORTER Raghib Hassan Zafar Iqbal of developing ideas for the SMILING FOR SHARJAH National College of Arts in Riaz Ali Khan Biennial,” she said, “I toured Lahore, she received her MFA the dilapidated cinema in Khor in 1995 from the Rhode Island SENIOR SUB-EDITOR / REPORTER Fakkan. The building, full of char- ARTIST SHAHZIA SIKANDER EXPLAINS HOW THE EMIRATE OF SHARJAH HAS School of Design. She specialis- Nabi Dad Khan acter, was in a state of decay, INFLUENCED HER WORK es in Indian and Persian minia- dying a slow death. ture painting, a traditional style SUB-EDITOR / REPORTER “Amidst the fast UAE build- that is both highly stylised and Saleha Irfan ing culture, the stagnating space disciplined. felt like an anomaly to me. On y sister lives in Abu Dhabi and now that Sharjah has allowed While becoming an expert in SPECIAL FEATURES WRITER arrival at the site to project and a real opportunity for me to engage, I feel I have a bet- this technique-driven, often Muhammad Yusuf film in December 2012, I came ter understanding of the area in general. impersonal art form, she across the sole guard, who hap- I visited Sharjah several times in 2012 to develop ideas and imbued it with a personal con- EDITORIAL pened to be from Pakistan and do research and did one of the projects in Khor Fakkan. In that text and history, blending an Tel: 06-5777999 M Fax: 06-5777737 who had come to Sharjah as a visit, I rented a car and drove across east and west coasts, which Eastern focus on precision and labourer to help build the cin- was also important in understanding the topography and the methodology, with a Western E-mail: ema. shift in the vernacular. emphasis on creative, subjec- [email protected] “His story, though complete- There is much more to understand. And I have kept the door tive expression. MARKETING ly unexpected, ended up being open to do more work there if the opportunity comes. The other In doing so, she transport- Tel: 06-5777888 woven into the work, less as an wonderful thing that has come about from the work I put up at ed miniature painting into the Fax: 06-5777677 illustration and more as a ran- the Sharjah Biennial is the invitation to develop a work for the realm of contemporary art. dom moment of illumination. 13th Istanbul Biennial (Sept. 14 – Nov. 10, curator Fulya Erdemci). Raised as a Muslim, she is also CIRCULATION Drawn images were also pro- The title of the biennial “Mom, am I barbarian?” is a quote from interested in exploring both Tel: 06-5777444 jected inside the cinema in var- the Turkish poet Lale Muldur’s book of the same title. sides of the Hindu and Muslim Fax: 06-5777642 ious locations. At times, the pro- Biennials are significant in bringing attention to art works “border,” often combining jections symbolically brought and artists as well as opening new opportunities for discussion. imagery from both — such as DUBAI back the cinema to life for the In my own particular situation, I introduced Art21 the Muslim veil and the Hindu Tel: 04-2625304 caretaker. (http://www.art21.org/artists) to the Sharjah Foundation, who multi-armed goddess — in a ABU DHABI “The final photographs cap- very generously invited them to come and visit the biennial. single painting. Tel: 02-6426266 ture the projected information Art21, in turn, invited me to conduct interviews with artists She has written: “Such jux- AL AIN as it transforms the existing participating in the Sharjah Biennial. It was very educational taposing and mixing of Hindu Tel: 03-7656796 space. After interacting and for me to learn more about various projects and the artists’ think- and Muslim iconography is a par- FUJAIRAH working in the space for a few ing process behind their works. allel to the entanglement of his- Tel: 09-2241970 days, I found out that the cin- tories of India and Pakistan.” RAS AL KHAIMAH ema was originally designed Expanding the miniature paint- Tel: 07-2334380 by architects and engineers ing to the wall, she also creates from Karachi, fashioned after murals and installations, using REPRESENTATIVE OFFICES some of the cinema architec- tissue-paper-like materials that ture of the 60s and 70s in allow for a more free-flowing INDIA Pakistan. style. The Times of India — Response Department Tel: 0091 22 2630338 “The caretaker, having risen In what she labels perform- Fax: 0091 22 2673145 the ranks as a manager of the ances, she has experimented with BAHRAIN space, had literally lived in wearing a veil in public, some- Arab World — Advertising the cinema for 36 years. This thing she never did before mov- & Information Centre was his life, his love: since his ing to the United States. Utilising Tel: 00973 277794 existence was so intricately performance and various media Fax: 00973 254297 intertwined with the space, the and formats to explore issues PAKISTAN imminent death of the cine- of border crossing, she seeks to Tel: 0092 21 6634795 ma in my eyes became a subvert stereotypes of the East Fax: 0092 21 6634795 metaphor for his life’s labour. and, in particular, the Eastern MUSCAT “He, on the other hand, Pakistani woman. Tel: 789 268 spoke of the space as if it was She has received many awards PARIS still alive and functional, and honours for her work, includ- 4577 0 220 unable to see the layers of dust remains captive to the garden’ ings, the use of the phrase is also ing the honorary artist award LONDON and decay around him, a sole is from the ghazal of the poet meant to elicit multiple reads.” from the Pakistan Ministry of 3419 284 survivor held captive to a Ghalib. In the spirit of his poet- Sikander was born in 1969 in Culture and National Council of dream. The phrase ‘The ry which is multidimension- Lahore, Pakistan. Educated as the Arts. She resides in New York PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY cypress, despite its freedom, al and full of multiple mean- an undergraduate at the and Texas. Dar Al Khaleej, P.O. Box 30 Sharjah, United Arab Emirates THE GULF TODAY / THURSDAY, MAY 9 2013 TIME OUT 3.