Written by: Haroon Shuaib
Posted on: May 23, 2022 | 
| 中文
Sheherezade Alam
On May 19, 2022, Sheherezade Alam, Pakistan’s finest ceramic and legendry artist, breathed her last at the age of 74 in Lahore. Born in 1948, Sheherezade’s creative journey is spread over almost 5 decades. She was the only daughter out of the three children of Mahmoud Alam, a Pakistani former tennis player and Surayya Alam, an educationist who is considered a pioneer of Montessori education in the city. After finishing her FA from Kinnaird College, a demure and rather shy Sheherezade, went on to obtain her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design with a distinction in ceramics from National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore. While at the NCA, her personality went through a transformation. She studied under the country's first ceramist, Salahuddin Mian and discovered her own passion for modelling and transforming clay into shapes. This love for pottery lasted a life time. “Clay teaches you. It teaches you to take the blows with joys. You need to be attentive. If you do a little and leave it, the clay will abandon you,” she reflected in one of her interviews. As a student, she made regular visits to the Shahdara Pottery Development Centre, a historic institute of traditional pottery, and her early works were inspired by the vernacular pottery forms. “From a very early age it must have been written that I would be a potter. Pottery shops would haunt me, I would want to go and touch, bring the pots home, paint them, see what would happen if you put water in them,” she recalled in an interview.
Young Sheherezade Alam
Once out of the college, Sheherezade won a scholarship to the West Surrey College of Art and Design, UK. Over the years, her work was exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in Pakistan, Turkey, Kuwait, Canada and the USA. In 1971, she married Zahoor-ul-Akhlaq, a prominent painter of the country. The couple had two daughters, Jahanara and Nurjahan. Sheherezade went on to become an artist-in-residence at Yale. She was a beloved teacher, having taught at home in NCA, as well as in Turkey at Bilkent University in the city of Ankara. Her connection with matti (clay) grew stronger with each passing year. “My whole body moves when I’m passing a pot. The clay in my body, in my being, responds to the clay outside,” she said.
A collection of earthen pottery by Sheherezade Alam
Sheherezade was the first person in South Asia to be elected to the membership of ‘The International Academy of Ceramics’, Switzerland. Her later work drew inspiration from the different places to which she travelled, such as Turkey, Iran, Greece, Italy, Japan, China, UK and Scandinavia. “At art school in England in 1983-4, I took a whole semester just testing glazes, because I had never had that opportunity. One of my teachers had written a book on ancient Chinese glazing techniques and I learnt about the Celadon, I could produce the ox-blood. When I came back, I started to work on the Chinese glazes in Lahore. To produce ox-blood red you need copper, and there is plenty of copper oxide in Pakistan. All you need to do is control the temperature and the reduction, which is taking oxygen out, so carbon is created. With the firing, carbon settles on the surface. It interacts with the glaze, it is oxidised again and then the colour emerges, the red or the Celadon, any of the special effect glazes,” she recalled.
Sheherezade Alam with Children at Jahan-e-Jahanara
Despite her global experiences and inspirations, Sheherezade remained grounded in her own traditions, exploring innovative dimensions. “Yes, I’ve looked to China and Japan for inspiration but in my work, there’s also the connection to Harappa. Most of my work is done on the wheel. Sadly, we have had no real teaching of our connection to our clay heritage. Our figurines from Mehrgarh date back to 9000 BC. That’s eleven thousand years of clay legacy. We talk about the Egyptians and children learn about Mesopotamia, but we never talk about the Indus Valley. Even if we do, it’s only about its archaeological importance. We have lessons to learn from this ancient land. We have a living clay legacy, but we are not aware because it has not been shown to us,” Sheherezade said.
Sheherezade Alam’s display of her ceramic art and Phulkari fabric collection at Jahan-e-Jahanara
In a tragic turn of events Zahoor and Jahanara, who had grown up to be an immensely talented classical dancer, were murdered in 1999. This catastrophic occurrence left Sheherezad deeply scarred and wounded, and she moved to Canada for the next few years. “Thanks to clay, I was better prepared for the tragedy of losing my husband and daughter who were murdered. When I buried my husband and daughter I felt I was sending them back to clay,” Sheherezade reflected on this tragic chapter of her life many years later in an interview.
Jahanara - Sheherezade’s daughter
In Canada, Sheherezade set up the ‘Zahoor Project’, in order to document her husband’s work. She returned to Pakistan in 2007 and set up ‘Jahan-e-Jahanara’ (World of Jahanara) Centre for Traditional Arts for Children, named after her deceased daughter. She said that her vision was to enrich the visual vocabulary of her students. She taught dastan-goee (storytelling), puppetry, singing and music, calligraphy and creating Harrapan shapes and terracotta figurines with clay to children. “I had a yearning to teach children. Having lost a child, the only way back is to be close to children…. My mission is to tell everyone we are earth, fire, water, air. I didn’t choose clay, clay chose me. Five years after graduating from the National College of Arts, Lahore, I set up my own studio, although no one wanted to see the liability of a woman in that setup. I am a product of the sixties, so I believe in revolution – my husband told me to bring revolution into the studio. I was the first woman to set up my own studio as a potter in 1977…. Everything used to be made for a purpose (in subcontinent’s civilizations): to store water and food. There is an incredible amount of clay that we are not realising. I wonder about people who made these pots, they were civilised people. I want children in Pakistan to know that part of our history. We have so much history and culture; our heritage is our identity.” Sheherezade said in an interview.
Sheherezade Alam interacting with children at Jahan-e-Jahanara
In 2013, she took a residency at the Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China. During the residency, she produced a large body of work that formed her most memorable exhibition, ‘A Pilgrimage with Porcelain.’ Recalling that experience she shared in an interview, “In Jingdezhen, you understand that clay manifests itself everywhere. Everywhere you look, there’s something made out of clay, somebody’s painted with it, somebody’s carved it, treated it in so many ways. So much so that you become numb from wondering what you should do. ‘Halankay chalees saal say mein yeh kar rahi hun. (although I had been doing this for forty years). I had to tell myself, start with your hands, just start making a pot, do what you know first. Once I got started, I couldn’t stop.”
A class in progress at Jahan-e-Jahanara
‘I want people to feel that we are very ancient. If you give people a sense of history they get more attached to their country. You are responsible for your country. Not only do you touch the ball of clay, it touches you and suddenly it is a shape. Giving Zahoor and Jahanara back to the earth seemed to be the most natural thing to do. I felt as if I knew this earth; it is what has been nurturing us throughout. It is the earth which speaks to us and explains everything to us, and it is through this process that I have learnt everything in life. It was the experience of working with my hands which helped me in the healing process. Every pot is touched and tested by fire. Like the pots I make, I, too, have been tested by fire,’ she said.
Sheherezade during her last days with her caregivers
As Sheherezade said, ‘humans have an inherent attachment to clay. We eat, we live and we drink off the earth. We are of the earth.’ True to her art, Sheherezade remained attached to earth all her life, and today she lies buried in the same earth.
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