Written by: Nimra Khan
Posted on: February 26, 2019 | 
Come a little closer by Malika Abbas
Time-based media share similarities with new media, and can be described as mediums that hinge on the fourth dimension of duration, unfolding over a certain period and requiring the audience to spend that amount of time to view a work in its entirety. This includes video, film, slides, audio, or computer based works. Due to the evolving nature of technology, questions can be raised as the durability of such works and the act of preserving, conserving and archiving them, especially as part of museum collections, becomes problematic. What happens when the current forms of storing digital media become obsolete and perhaps even nontransferable to a newer technology 50 years from now, rendering these current works non-viewable?
A recent show at AAN Gandhara Art Space, “Depicture,” curated by Alia Bilgrami, brings its attention to time-based media, and the dynamics of not only viewing works produced in such mediums, but also the complexities of archiving or preserving such works for future viewing. Ironically, the show uses this transient medium to speak about the neglect faced by our historical sites and architectural spaces, and the destruction of natural spaces due to developmental projects and urbanism that rapidly spreads in all directions.
Aisha Abid uses a slideshow to document the living space of a legendary personality in the Pakistani art world, Salima Hashmi. Through this archival study of an old house and an artistic hub, the residents can be observed. “It is a poetic take on her persona and peeps into her most intimate spaces, to provide clues about her emotional and intellectual mental space,” says the artist. The work is drawing connections between people and their lived spaces, while simultaneously showcasing how individuals and societies interact through intimate moments, personal quirks, living habits and eccentricities.
Ali Sultan, on the other hand, looks at disappearing nature through a personal lens. He talks of a park that he and his friend would escape to during their teenage years. He photographs it in daylight, as he admits to never having seen it in the morning. This is an act of preservation of personal history – and through that perhaps collective history as well – by capturing the natural spaces within a city. As these spaces fall to ruin, the memories they represent are being preserved through this act of documentation and archiving.
Jovita Alvares’s work is focused on documenting the everyday, subtle nuances of urban life, experienced through the physical space of the city. Class and social barriers are traversed through these visual montages, drawing our attention towards the transient nature of urbanity, through the fleeting nature of the images and their presentation. The bougainvillea that the artist has been exploring becomes a metaphor of resilience, adorning the graying and dry urban landscape. “Remnant 2” is an interesting development in the artist’s style, splitting the image into multiple layers and drawing the audience into the depths of the landscape. While her works take their final form in digital prints, her methods remain mostly analogue, with the artist’s own physical participation remaining a paramount characteristic of the process, bringing a certain organic quality to the work.
Malika Abbas’s work seems to draw from personal archives instead, exploring memories that at times seem bitter, and at other times sweet. It is “a journey of loss, joy, regret, acceptance and submission.” It is a way of preserving, through visual memories, individuals that the artist is afraid to lose. The black and white prints are immensely emotive, even as the artist calls them documentative archives of emotions.
Veera Rustomji’s video work excavates personal archives, but takes on a more socio-political tone that questions her place in society as a woman. Exploring the narratives surrounding women, the video appears to be satirically questioning the expectations that are built and conditioned through the media we consume in our lives. It begins with a personal anecdote highlighting how problematic acts by men as justified as the faults of women, and ends with a visual demonstration of a family recipe of a traditional Parsi dish, highlighting the absurdity of such notions, that a woman’s ability to cook well will prevent infidelity.
Numair Abbasi’s work again focuses on socio-political themes, depicting his allegedly fictitious interactions on dating apps, where the subtle nuances of social interactions emerge. These moments are captured with earnestness, and highlight the fleeting nature of our online personas. The video work brings a level of witticism to these online interactions, presenting them in the form of a game where a virtual tête-à-tête becomes a social conflict, where no one really wins.
Works like these, while strong on their own, raise questions about relevance to the curatorial premise. While some of the works are time-based, others, such as the photographic prints, remain 2-dimensional and retain their archival integrity. It is always more exciting to engage the artists in a nonrestrictive premise, but in this case it also poses the danger of an uneven exploration of the theme.
On the other hand, the connection between medium and theme that emerges in most works becomes a point of interest. The act of archiving is interestingly carried out through means that are in themselves ephemeral and non-archival. Contemplating the lack of preservation of heritage through a medium, that may not lend itself well to preservation in its current form, raises questions about its own nature in the process, and is an exciting idea that overtly and subtly emerges throughout the works.
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