Curators Qudsia Rahim and Amra Khan put together Stet, a cross-media art exhibition, for LLF 2014 which showed at the Alhamra from Feb. 21 through Feb. 23.
“In times of crisis, understanding of a conflict is swept aside by a surge of patriotism,” says the exhibition’s catalogue. “There is a merging of elements, ingredients, and ideas that form the foundation for action [and] propaganda is used to motivate and spur people to fight” that tends to blur individual identities prompting “a sense of dislocation.”
Stet addresses the individual and national search for identity “beyond stereotypes” in times of crisis. “We searched to restore a feeling of cultural identity surging through the visual medium searching for a common symbolic center,” said Rahim and Khan. “Yet, in our attempt to create a dialogue between the arts, the city, and the Diaspora, we ended up highlighting the differences even more. We chose not to instruct. We chose not to judge. We chose not to change. We chose to let it be and to let it stand: stet.”
Stet featured works from Bani Abidi, David Alesworth, Sidra Ashraf, Ali Baba, Farida Batool, Faiza Butt, Imran Channa, Iqbal Geoffery, Malcolm Hutcheson, Ayesha Jatoi, Julius John, Naiza Khan, Saba Khan, Huma Mulji, Mehreen Murtaza, Fazal Rizvi, Mohsin Shafi, Risham Syed, Zaineb Siddiqui, Mohammad Ali Talpur, and Salman Talpur. It also featured installations from the Citizens Archive of Pakistan, and the Office of Conservation and Community Outreach.
Stet was made possible with the support of Attiq Ahmed, Razi Ahmed, Naazish Ataullah, Asad Hayee, Salima Hashmi, Rohtas II, Ayen Designs, Topical, and Mohsin Hamid.
