NCA thesis show — portraying adages, urban night life and red-light areas

RAWALPINDI: Unique ideas, innovative mediums and fresh perspectives were the order of the day as the National College of Arts (NCA) Rawalpindi campus’ thesis exhibition for the graduating batch of 2014-15 opened on Monday.

The exhibit features the work of around 50 students from the art and architecture faculties and was opened by Federal Minister for Inter-provincial Coordination Riaz Hussain Pirzada.

NCA Rawalpindi Director Nadeem Omer Tarrar told Dawn that this year, the college had a 100 per cent result this year. In Fine Arts, seven students obtained distinctions, four obtained honours and 12 were declared ‘passed’, while in Architecture, four students obtained distinctions, three grabbed honours and 19 were declared ‘passed’.

One of the most captivating installations was ‘I Am You’ by Aimen Aziz, who had tried to capture life in a Red Light area. Set up in a multi-storey layout resembling the traditional anatomy of a kotha or brothel, the display was decked out with posters of Bollywood stars and bright colourful lights. “I wanted to present the life of women from the Red Light areas, because they are human beings, just like us. They also offer prayers, give charity, bring up children and they need our respect,” Ms Aziz told Dawn.

Batool Fatima, whose work was titled ‘Mahavray’ or idioms, had tried to depict turns of phrase in her work. The most striking was a bull sculpture, called ‘Aa Bael Mujhay Maar’. “It will be dangerous if you go near it. From far away, it seems beautiful,” she said. She told Dawn that as a woman, it was harder for her to be taken seriously as a sculptor since sculpting was considered a man’s domain in our society.

Jibran Shahid, who’s ‘Equine Principle’ was one of the most impressive works on display, created sculptures that were man-horse hybrids. “In these sculptures, I’m trying to express the similarities between man and horse, but the human being has a mind to explore things, as well as the ability to end his own life, but the animal cannot do this,” he said.

Maria Ali Shah’s display featured graffiti-like scrawling on black walls. However, what seemed unintelligible from afar told the story of the evolution of objects. “Objects used to be tools for living, but now they have overpowered modern man,” she said.

Agha Irtaza’s sculptures depicted coins and played with ideas of justice and corruption. One of his most poignant pieces was the sculpture of a weighing scale, with one side weighed down by a Rs5 coin.

Samiullah’s cityscapes, titled ‘Underworld’, were quite captivating and explored urban night life, bringing to life the characters one finds on the streets late at night. There is a pot-bellied policeman accosting a young child in one frame, while the headlights of a car shine ominously on the viewer in another.

Samiullah told Dawn that he had created his cityscapes from imagination and had not based it on any real-life city. “I was inspired by Gotham city,” he said, referring to the fictional city where popular comic character Batman comes from.

Printmaker Areeba Khan’s work, titled ‘Haunting Memories’ dealt with the absence of her mother. It featured everyday scenes and installations that depicted life without a matriarch. Pieces such as the time lapse of an empty chair with a prayer mat draped over it were quite powerful and captured the emotion of longing in a very personal manner.

Speaking on the occasion, chief guest Riaz Hussain Pirzada said that the students’ work was remarkable and full of creativity. “The show is proof that NCA’s ethos has successfully been planted in the land of the Gandhara,” he said. The show will continue until Jan 18.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2016