Yaminay Nasir Chaudhri’s talk on alternative art practices and activism was held at The 2nd Floor on Tuesday.
Chaudhri, a recent Master of Fine Arts graduate from the University at Albany, State University of New York, discussed the relationship between contemporary art and social activism.
Using her projects as well as those of different artists, Chaudhri addressed several issues, including migration, identity, home and longing.
In the session, titled ‘Art and Activism: A Talk on Migration and Longing’, complexities of migrant persons, behaviours of expatriates, stereotypes, breaking boundaries and art as social commentary came under discussion.
The combined media artist-cum-Collar Works art gallery curator showed excerpts from her projects ‘Loss’, ‘Encounter’, ‘Home Post Card Project’, ‘Meeting with Strangers’, ‘Changing the Demographics’ and ‘Beyond the Wall’.
In ‘Loss’, the audience could observe the artist’s memories recorded in audio, with embedded sounds of leaves making it impossible to listen to different sounds, like a father singing, the BBC playing or children laughing.
The idea was derived from the American fall that takes over everything and to revisit one’s childhood.
‘Meeting with Strangers’, as Chaudhri put it, was about the interactions she has with the stereotypes.
The videos were recorded with the theme of learning something new from her subjects; for instance, tying a knot from a US Navy official, making a braid from a girl from Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Apart from her successful projects in the US, Chaudhri also talked elaborately about her new projects in Karachi.
Charkhana, a project aimed at providing a “chaikhana” to women of diverse communities in Sikandarabad, an underprivileged area of Karachi, was postponed due to lack of funds.
During the session that continued for more than two hours, clippings from projects of Iraqi and Norwegian artists working on migrant communities were also shown.
In the discussion that followed the presentation, people attending the session expressed their perspective about the issues presented by Chaudhri as well as issues with regard to the Pakistani society.
Nevertheless, the Pakistani-raised/US resident was able to get the people to debate in the manner she believes in: “getting them out of their own perception of reality.”
