Written by: Nimra Khan
Posted on: November 29, 2018 | 
| 中文
Roderick Angle by Qinza Najm
A recent solo exhibition at Chawkandi Art Gallery by artist Qinza Najm, “And All around Her There Was a Frightening Silence,” curated by Brooke Lynn McGowan, sheds a critical light on the experiences of marginalized groups within any society, particularly women, who face the burden of expectations placed on them due to societal norms. Najm explores this mainly through the body and its relation to a physical and social space, and the dynamics of navigating that space with its restrictions and rules, challenging them to move towards true empowerment.
Najm’s work is inspired from her past experiences as a psychologist who spent her childhood in Pakistan and most of her adult life in the United States. Thus, her practice is heavily informed by people and their stories, and the ways in which their experiences informed their worldview. “I was interested in how people, myself included, have changed their narrative from victimization to survival, and then to thriving, and then serving,” she says.
It is perhaps no coincidence then that most of her imagery and metaphors contain a sense of duality, symbols of oppression transformed into those of empowerment. Artifacts such as the dupatta in her installation work can be seen as a tool of control and restriction. Yet, the stories of trauma and great struggles to overcome it, attached to the dupatta, counter society’s use of them as a means of policing women’s behavior. The noose that she fashions out of it is therefore not stifling its wearer, but condemning the abusive and destructive societal norms that the carpets behind it represent. Similarly, in her series of paintings, which she calls “Stretch(ed),” the distortions within the silhouette of the figure manipulate abuse and exploit the body, yet the artist sees it as a self-directed act that seeks to defy the formal rules of appearance, stretching it to overcome limitations and boundaries.
The motifs and images that the artist uses as symbols in her narrative operate on multiple levels for a more layered commentary. Women from Western art history are juxtaposed with sliced up images of Persian rugs that amalgamate East and West, to universalize the ideas of oppression not only across geography and culture but also across time. “When I flipped through the pages of art history, the phrase, ‘behind every great artist is a great woman who he doesn’t share his brush with,’ came to mind.” These women were their muses, but their own talents were secondary to their purpose in the lives of the artists as objects of desire. The rug that distorts and erases these women is a common household object, reiterating the ubiquity of the issue. “The rug also brings to mind the phrase ‘sweep it under the rug,’ as we most often choose to hide away the bad norms in society, but we need to have these difficult conversations.”
Contained within her own silhouette, these contrasting images are vying for space, not only creating narratives of gender politics but also cultural imperialism and racial prejudice; the distorted Western motifs and encroaching Eastern imagery reversing the power dynamics between the two cultures in order to empower the marginalized. The work “Veil of Bullets” also adds a layer of religious and racial politics to the gendered narrative of violence against women. The striking image posits the veil as a form of violence and control with associations to honor, placed on a thin line between protection and suppression. Ideas of Islamophobia are also latent in this image, as the veil of bullet shells turns a religious symbol into a violent one, in turn defining the identity of the wearer and taking over her narrative.
The video installation, however, dispenses the language of metaphors and focuses on real women and their real stories, humanizing the issue. This format allows for a nuanced and intersectional view of feminism and empowerment, as a woman from a small village talks about her quest to get educated, and the eventual marriage she was forced into, while another talks about how reading the Quran gives her peace and strength. We don’t just see women as stereotypical victims, but the many aspects that play into their struggles, from religion to culture to class and ethnicity, and how each individual overcomes these struggles in their own personalized way. Through such works, not only does the artist address the culture of silence, referred to in the title, which facilitates the oppression of the marginalized, but also provides a voice to combat it.
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