A Conversation with Adeela Suleman, Bawwaba artist, 2019 Art Dubai, by James Scarborough

Established in 2007, Art Dubai is the world’s leading platform for Contemporary and Modern art from the Middle East - North Africa - South Asia (MENASA) region, aka the Global South. This 13th iteration of the fair will feature 500 artists from around the world represented by 90 galleries in 40 countries. Its Artistic Director is Pablo del Val. Featuring Global Arts Forum, the Residents Program, and Campus Art Dubai, programming will include talks, tours, workshops, special performances and an after-dark music program. The Fair runs from March 20 - 23.

Curated by French-Cameroonian curator Élise Atangana, Bawwaba (the Arabic word for gateway) is a new section of the fair featuring 10 solo presentations by artists from, based in, or focused on Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Central and South Asia. Bawwaba documents current artistic developments in what has become known in transnational and postcolonial studies as the Global South. The inaugural edition features works created within the last year or conceived specifically for the fair.

Below is an interview with Adeela Suleman, one of the Bawwaba artists.

(Follow the links for other 2019 Art Dubai interviews. Fawz Kabra, Co-Director, Global Art Forum. Fernanda Brenner, Co-Curator, Residents Programme. Daniah Al Saleh, winner of the 2nd Edition of the Ithra Art Prize. And Reena Lath, Co-Founder, Akar Prakar Gallery) 

JS: Who or what exposed you to art? Who were the teachers and/or role models that influenced you?

AS: My mother sent me to the art & craft classes since the time I can recall my memory. I initially thought I wanted to be a textile designer. It was only at the university level that I realized that I wanted to do my second degree in Arts. I actually came to the art college after doing my masters. My teacher David Alesworth at the art school I went to, gave me an insight into the world of art.

But making objects runs in my family. My grandmother was a whole institution, she was like a finishing school. She taught me from stitching to embroidery. My great grandfather use to fashion objects in wood by carving. He used to sell them in the Kumb Ka Mela [a Hindu pilgrimage] in India. I think making objects is part of my genes.

JS: Before you got your BFA, you studied International Relations. Socially and politically, how did your studies inform the subsequent content and form of your sculpture?

AS: Having a master’s degree in international relations was the best thing that happened to me. I had the opportunity to learn about the world politics which directly impacted on how I wanted to approach my ideas in my studio practice. I was always commenting on the outside world while reflecting on the personal experiences. It was at the Karachi university that I fully understood the dynamics of this ultra-charged up city. I got the true glimpse of its violence, its chaos, its politics and its entangled mafia. Even if I was talking about my own personal experiences they were layered with what was happening beyond my personal space.

JS: How does your choice of materials - found objects, such as kitchen utensils; motorcycles; the use of flat sheets of steel as a pictorial ground - reflect the society in which you grew up and now live?

AS: All the objects used are very local. The aesthetic is local. The making is local in terms of getting things done by hand- (handmade). Sometimes I look at the object and I know exactly how I want to use and in which context. Sometimes idea dictates the choice of object. It’s a two way process, it happens automatically. Sometimes the object sits in my studio space for years and nothing happens to it.

Steel is a cold, tough and adamant material just like the city Karachi. Its coldness reminds me a dead body on a stretcher, Karachi is tough and resilient as it keeps functioning no matter what happens and its adamant to resolve its own issue all by its self. Steel is commonly seen on busses and trucks used as a decorative skin to hide the ugly body of a vehicle. It’s a most noticeable common sight on the road.

JS: It’s written that your early work embodied challenges that women face in their private lives. Is that theme still prevalent in your more recent work?

AS: I think all my works is relevant to the life I live and the time that I am living in. Being a woman my senses respond in a certain way to the everyday experience we go through.

I responded to this apparently crazy city with its characteristics of organized chaos, over population, use & abuse of resources, urban craft and customized ways of doing things. My initial response was the project ‘Salma Sitara and Sisters Motorcycle Workshop’ dealt with the issues of class and gender. I was questioning the gender issues by looking outside my personal space and exploring the public sphere, but I was also exploring the skill dimension as expressed in found objects, found techniques and ever evaporating crafts available in the city.

The general lawlessness and terror attacks in the city combined to form a lethal cocktail. The degree of bloodshed in the last decade was such that targeted killings and random terror attacks claiming around a dozen lives a day seemed to be the routine day in Karachi. There was a time when there was a bomb blast nearly every day in the country and quite regularly in Karachi. The other major cities of Pakistan were relatively a safer place. The terror which Karachi was suffering with, the other cities were imagining.

The omnipresence of violence is self-evident in the city as almost 1700 people lost their lives in 2011, 2029 people in 2014 during target killing spree.  Though the number of violence induced deaths in the city almost halved in 2015, Karachi still remained the most violence-affected region in the country, topping even the restive tribal district of North Waziristan, according to a report published by the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS).

As the chaos grew, terror attacks multiplied, death toll rose and fear became the constant factor doing the everyday chores. It was inevitable to shut my senses and continue living.

It became a city where the clouds of paranoia circulated 24/7. Every action needed to be precise and the area of maneuvering in the city became smaller and smaller. Death became closer; death being the most certain thing became uncertain for me.

My husband’s interest in social reforms made my family more vulnerable. Raising voice for rape victims and social justice for labors in this city can only lead to death threats.

It appeared that the news channels were more entertaining than any Pakistani drama or a Bollywood or Hollywood film.  It seemed that the Kill bill movie was on live performance.

The title of my shows from Salma Sitara and sisters Motor Cycle workshop became – Confinement, Uncertainty, I had no choice but to hear you, After all it’s always somebody else who dies and the most recent shows were titled Towards the end, dream of Carnage and in 2017 the show was titled Not Everyone’s heaven and my recent show was titled From the Ruin to Rust. The work became macabre and the dark humor with which I use to look at the city just simply evaporated.

I started counting the number of people dying every day and was dedicating one dead bird to each death but the numbers of deaths were multiplying on a much faster rate than my artistic production. I made curtains and chandelier like structure but in the shape of countless dead bird.

JS: What was your first thought when you learned that you were chosen as a Bawwaba artist? What does the award mean for you as a woman, as an artist, and as a Pakistani?

AS: It endorses my practice. As a woman artist working in Pakistan it provides inspiration to the other artists. I am honored and humbled.

JS: What are you working on now?

AS: I am working on a project in which a local policeman killed more than 400 people in fake encounters. I am looking at the ecology of violence in the context of city and its dynamics. It might be a monument of death.

Violence has become part of our local landscape. Violence is leaving traces, and these traces are haunting us. The memory of violence is not only embedded in peoples' bodies and minds but also adorned onto space in all kinds of settings especially on the natural environment.

The more odious the crime the more entertaining it becomes for the doer and for the observer. The more beautiful the landscape the more appalling acts of terror and violence it experiences. The more heinous the crime, the more captivating and beautiful the monument.

I am interested in the way violence provide us pleasure and joy like food, sex and games. The rigor, passion, pain, excitement and want involved in all of these acts make me question the act of violence as mere violence.

 

Protecting his land 1, 2019, wood frame, wood staining, metal plate with enamel paint and lacquer, 11.5 x 10 x 1.75 in.
Courtesy of Aicon Contemporary.

 

Protecting his land 2, 2019, wood frame, wood staining, metal plate with enamel paint and lacquer, 11.5 x 10 x 1.75.
Courtesy of  Aicon Contemporary.

 

Protecting his land 3, 2019, wood frame, wood staining, metal plate with enamel paint and lacquer, 11.5 x 10 x 1.75.
Courtesy of Aicon Contemporary.

Wipe the slate clean 1, 2019, hand beaten repousse work on stainless steel, 53 x 131 x 6 in.
Courtesy of Aicon Contemporary.

Wipe the slate clean 2, 2019, and beaten repousse work on stainless steel layered with gold leaf, 53 x 131 x 6 in.
Courtesy of Aicon Contemporary.

 

Wipe the slate clean 3, 2019, hand beaten repousse work on stainless steel, 53 x 131 x 6 in.
Courtesy of Aicon Contemporary.