The Lahore Biennale Foundation, a non-profit seeking greater public engagement the arts, held its first public event with the opening of Rashid Rana’s project My East is Your West, at Liberty Market.
“My East is Your West” Lahore/Venice project is a collaborative effort between Rashid Rana and the Lahore Biennale Foundation, and will stay open till October 2015. This project has been brought to the public with the support of HBL, Pakistan’s largest bank, in its efforts to enable the arts in the country. Rashid Rana is one of Pakistan’s leading contemporary artists, a pioneer in Pakistani visual art, presenting the first large-scale public project of its kind in the country.
Rashid Rana’s works are featured in this year’s Venice Biennale, one of the most prestigious art events of the world. Part of these works in Venice features a room with a video projection of a live feed from a mirrored space in the Liberty Market. Audiences in Venice are able to see and interact with the public in Lahore. The artist’s room in Lahore, an exactly replicated space, similarly allows viewers to witness the Venice audience through another live feed. The project thus has broken barriers between these two populaces across the globe, through just a simple room.