FAIZ FEST Series – III
Poet Agha Shahid Ali once wrote about Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry – “I listened: and you became, like memory, necessary…”
US-based Sarah Ahmed in her formidable journey, actually walked the poet Faiz’s path of ‘Walk Tall and Walk Alone”… And the world walked with her, as he promised they would, she stood towering boldly taking on the cause of the displaced people of Gilgit Baltistan, a part of what is known in India as Pak occupied Kashmir (PoK). The criticism stemmed from local artists who asserted to be given priority as locals art exhibitors over ‘outsiders’. Undeterred, Salima Hashmi, her teacher stood rock strong with her during this ordeal. And the curtains of the Faiz Fest rose to artist Sarah Ahmed’s “Solo exhibition” at elusive Alhambra Hall, on the opening day, ribbon cutting ceremony performed by Sisters Salima and Monezza Hashmi, daughters of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
The title of Sarah exhibition thus flowed from the pen of the great poet …‘Tum Apni Karni Kar Guzroo…’ – “You do your deed and move on ..”. And Sarah did exactly that. “Sarah’s work is so luscious, meaningful, evocative, tactile, political, it was nothing but joy, to work for her with Dr Salima Hashmi,” ‘pyaari azadi’ her exhibition curator wrote.
Sarah in an exclusive talk with RASHMI TALWAR during Faiz Fest 2025 in Lahore Pakistan, laid threadbare the efforts that went into creating this assemblage of artwork and the story behind it.
- Q. Sarah your work is extraordinary, juxtaposed with brilliant colours, what is it that you have tried to portray with Sindhi ‘topis’ or hats and the artwork on the floor with the same Sindhi hats? Is there a message, or an inspiration to give the ‘topis’ an art form?
A: They are ‘Hunza Topis’, not Sindhi‘Topis’! Hand-embroidered by women in their homes in Gilgit Baltistan, in villages near Attabad, a region near the Pakistan-China border, especially for this project. They are arranged in the shape of Attabad Lake which was created from the landslide that buried the Attabad village and formed the lake.
My artwork, of digital photography, was carried out at ground zero, the site of the disaster at Attabad Lake. It is looking at land displacement through the lens of this disaster in Hunza of Gilgit Baltistan. My artwork can best be described as being based on the tragic reflection of the catastrophe, a cry of these voiceless people, born from the devastating experiences of the flooding of 2010 when villages were gobbled up and several died. Thus, the deluge, disappearance, dispossession, disaster, disintegration, and dislocation are what my work portrays. The brilliance of the colours in the ‘Topis’ depict the hearts and heads, that are simple and innocent and the hardiness of these mountain women who have the strength to conquer mountains but not their own hearts that are left drowned in their homes, washed by the floods and formed into the Lake Attabad. The exhibition is a tribute to their strength in the face of this tragedy. The caps stand in for the disappearance of women’s labour, lifeways, and bodies, from the land.
Gilgit-Baltistan, is home to the highest mountains and longest glaciers outside polar regions, a most ethnically diverse region. Disproportionately shouldering the ravages of climate change, 2010’s massive landslide buried Attabad villages and formed a desert of dunes and the Attabad Lake. Displaced Attabad people were forgotten, here evoked by traditional Hunza caps.
Women from the area brought the caps from their homes and I composed them. We then stitched them together and I took them to the site of Attabad Lake and did these site-specific, ephemeral installations that I documented. One other site was Eagles Nest where the woman wrapped in black with her wrist and hand locked over tree barks, ridges, in crevices, or lifeless in water, were modelled by Zaheera Siraj, the human rights complaints officer for all of Gilgit Baltistan. Her family also lost homes in the Attabad disaster. Erosion of parts of ourselves through trauma is a personal experience that Zaheera and I have both experienced as also the women of Attabad colony.
Q: Sarah why did you leave Pakistan?
A: It was in pursuit of my passion that I left Pakistan. In 2019, I was selected for the prestigious Tulsa Artist fellowship-2019. Ten last year studio Santa Fe Art Institute New Mexico awarded me the fellowship. Now the NY Artists Residency and Studios NARS’ has awarded me the fellowship. Currently, I am based in Tulsa, Oklahoma U.S.A. and will come to Pakistan for more project work. I intend to make America my home, where I am based for the last 7 year, the formative years of my work as a professional artist.
Q: So Sarah you actually lived this title of “Tum Apni Karni Kar Guzroo… ?”
A: There were too many incidents in my life where I followed this principle of ‘Tum Apni karni…’ this exhibition included and emerged successful every time, so Faiz’s words sit with me throughout my life, like my life mantra. In Urdu, the same word for ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’ is ‘Kal’. ‘Kal’ thus is fluid – a future and past merger. As an immigrant to the US, I too live profoundly in-between. My practice is about rebuilding a future from the wreckages of the past – to manifest transformation.
Q: In another segment ‘Parwaz’ or ‘Soar’ there was a usage of gold, which to my mind is the portrayal of new beginnings. Right?
A: In ‘Parwaz’ as you rightfully said ‘Soar’, the artwork comprises birds in flight Parwaz or Soaring: artwork comprises collaged photos of 100s of glaciers in Gilgit-Baltistan’s majestic and ecologically endangered landscapes, used to create these dominant birds in flight. The bird’s ascent suggests migration. The collage is on gold leaf, mounted on canvas. Gold makes the ordinary sacred. My work seeks to manifest a connection with the earth, with the rhythms of creation in an unceasing process of healing.
Artist & the Art: Sarah Ahmed and her art work depicting death and displacement of Hunza people.
Highlights of Faiz Festival
POPULAR PAK TV SERIAL ACTORESSES SAMINA PEERZADA (CENTER) AT FAIZ FEST LAHORE.
Being from Amritsar, it was an incredible moment to meet the Legendary Peerzada couple -Usman and Samina Peerzada, who became a craze and a sensation in the 70s 80s and 90s till date, not only in Pakistan but in the entire border belt with India of those who could afford and catch early-on Television signals of Pakistan TV. Moreso, the attractive couple had a runaway and whirlwind wedding, a dream of many a teenager in those times. The two freely mixed met and obliged the Faiz-soaked public with selfies – the new age replacement to celebrity autograph were a delight to watch. They spoke on Pakistan serials dramas, and their present state in terms of storylines, treatment, ease and business.
An exciting session of an Indian Book release, “How Dinkar lost his job and found a life” penned by prolific writer Gurpartap Khaira, Associate Professor of English, Hindu College Amritsar, moderated by Mina Haroon, Alhambra Admin, Art curator, threw fascinating aspects of the seed of a story, its habitation in the mind, its birth having distinct features formed in its flow. The book endorsed by a legendary Gulzar of the Indian film industry was a simple story told excitingly.
Renowned Punjabi writer Nanak Singh’s “Khooni Vaisakhi” (Blood-Soaked Vaisakhi) a powerful, poignant account of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of April 13, 1919, Amritsar, translated by grandson Navdeep Suri, a career diplomat, in English was read by Mani Suri, wife of the diplomat. The book by Nanak Singh published in 1927, was an eyewitness account of British brutality that spurred the course of the Quit India Movement and changed the passage of the history of the subcontinent. moderated by Arvinder Chamak, who led the Indian delegates from across the border and could best be described in poet Iftikhar Arif’s words as ‘Nisbaton ke Ameen’ – (Custodian of relationships), between India and Pakistan, the readings met with pin-drop silence as hundreds of ancestors of both countries were brutally murdered on that festival of Vaisakhi. (CONCLUDED)
