• Transitions of Travel, Trade, and Time

    Date posted: September 27, 2010 Author: jolanta
    Looking at the absurdities and conflicts of living in an urban society in transition of “living 200 years in the past and 30 years in the future” simultaneously, my works broadly address the visual and cultural overlaps of language, image, and taste that create the most fantastic collisions. Looking at this phenomenon with humor, my works aim toward an irony, both formally and conceptually surreal. Rather than dwell on existing theoretical issues of living and working in a post-colonial nation, the work for me is research into the realities of living in Pakistan. The works also explore the possibilities of “making” in Pakistan, of conflicting availability of low-tech methods of fabrication, together with exquisite traditional crafts, materials, and forms…

    Huma Mulji

    Huma Mulji, Heavenly Heights, 2009. Detail view. Taxidermic water buffalo, metal rods, powder coated steel, cotton wool, ceramic, and cable, 434.3 x 188 x 300 cm. Courtesy of Rami Farook.

    Looking at the absurdities and conflicts of living in an urban society in transition of “living 200 years in the past and 30 years in the future” simultaneously, my works broadly address the visual and cultural overlaps of language, image, and taste that create the most fantastic collisions. Looking at this phenomenon with humor, my works aim toward an irony, both formally and conceptually surreal. Rather than dwell on existing theoretical issues of living and working in a post-colonial nation, the work for me is research into the realities of living in Pakistan.

    The works also explore the possibilities of “making” in Pakistan, of conflicting availability of low-tech methods of fabrication, together with exquisite traditional crafts, materials, and forms that come from another time, or those that are “imported,” “newly discovered,” or “re-appropriated,” often discovering stunning design solutions for everyday design problems. Arabian Delight plays with ideas of travel, transition, and movement of goods and ideas, both legal and illegal, but also of the unacceptable, forced Arabization of a South Asian country like Pakistan, the camel therefore being twisted and awkwardly forced into the suitcase.

    Collisions of the present and the past; collisions of geographical distance and proximity; global exchange of taste, culture, ideas in contemporary times to an otherwise lopsided society, both economically and socially; also occur in Heavenly Heights and Housing Scheme, addressing urban development and a happily assimilated general discord.

    The newer work, Twisted Logic, made of mirror and glass, questions notions of certainty in a time where much else is illusion and a reflection of something else. The faceted mirror mosaic reflects its environment, where its own edges disappear. It invites viewers, multiplies their image, splits and crops it, questioning notions of truth and illusion. This disorientation, where a mutant, epileptic minaret is at once a large origami bird and an abstract form of failed architecture, removes the certainty of truth. Other similar works recently employ glass and mirror, often broken, questioning the veneer of gloss of urban life, revealing its fragility and vulnerability. The works investigate notions of beauty and its proximity to horror, within the current scenario of conflict. Ultimately, the works are always approached from the point of view of an inhabitant of this environment.

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