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Play is akin to sleep: it lets you dream, and in dreaming, discover.
This is the wonder of performance: It vitalises our fantasies and nightmares.
Mnemonics for This and That
March 2019Itinerant performance with Furhan Hussain using measuring tape, chalk outlines, glow sticks, yarn, paper, and text180 min. The Quantum City: Territory/Space/Place; Karachi Port Trust Building, KarachiMnemonics for This and That
Two "explorer-archaeologists" organically, subjectively, map an outdoor exhibition space using measuring tape, chalk outlines, glow sticks and text. As quiet evidence of people, objects, relationships and situations multiplies through the evening, this piece presents a microcosm of the secret poignancy and inanity of life in the city.
In Italo Calvino's fictional city Ersilia, inhabitants "establish the relationships that sustain the city's life" by crisscrossing lengths of colour-coded string. As this signage overwhelms the space it records, the people dismantle their dwellings and relocate—leaving behind the strings and their supports as "spiderwebs of intricate relationships seeking a form".
Similarly, The Quantum City was marked by what was and had been.
A New Dance (Embracing Sisyphus)
September 2018Interactive performance in office attire with knee immobilisers and coins180 min. Mix Tape (I); Canvas Gallery, KarachiA New Dance (Embracing Sisyphus)
Enacted at a three-storey gallery amidst crowds of visitors, this performance-on-loop was designed to simultaneously invite and inhibit interaction:
A man unable to bend his knees struggles up two flights of stairs. Repeatedly, as he nears what might be his destination, coins spill from his hands—sending him clambering down between visitors again.
This piece was a provocation: A look into how people respond when their sense of self or personal space is affected by the unexpected—violated, even, by that which demands humility, compassion, and steadfastness.
It was a recognition of the forms, literal and metaphorical, that being human can take.
Halt + Flow
October and November 2017Interactive performance in shalwar kameez on reflective vinyl, sandpaper, and foam120 min. Karachi Biennale; NJV School, KarachiHalt + Flow
The Salt that Came to Tea
February 2016Electric tea kettle, milk jug, sugar pot, teacup and saucer; artwork, balloons, bench, bottle of soda, fairy lights, fishing wire, laboratory stand, ladder, pallets, plastic bag, potted palm, sack of rice, shirt on a hanger, sofa, and stool4:34 min.Performance for video; KarachiThe Salt that Came to Tea
This piece was created to reflect the casualness of human inhabitance—how innocuous one's intent can be, and how destructive. Its percussive accompaniment was played on a construction labourer's iron all-purpose bowl.
Is performance not a kind of architecture? We sketch out routes, portals and edifices with our selves. Oh, to manifest hands sensitive to what is placed and replaced...
Carte Blanche
December 2014Interactive itinerant performance in all-white attire120 min.Dreamscape; Amin Gulgee Gallery, KarachiCarte Blanche
On the surface, a mime artist simply mirrored visitors to the show (in particular, those who engaged directly with the performer). The result was a range of surreal, often humorous interactions invoking both the familiar and literal meanings of the title (i.e. ‘freedom to act’ and ‘blank slate’).
Below the surface it was about the possibility, even necessity, of writing (and rewriting) over the self—as a means of compassionate identification with the other and, equally importantly, engagement with the unity of the universe.
(Right, above) Carte Blanche responding to Joshinder Chaggar's Autumn Leaves(Right, below) Interacting with a visitor
Motes in a Sunbeam: Beyond a Vacuum
January 2014Interactive itinerant performance, and crayon outlines on a wall210 min.Play! The Sixth IVS Alumni Show; IVS Gallery, KarachiMotes in a Sunbeam: Beyond a Vacuum
Over a three-and-a-half-hour period, every verbal interaction with visitors to the show was conducted a cappella. It was an experiment in what spontaneity, and a commitment to melody and rhythm, might instigate within the performer—and in those being conversed with; and how this could shape or enliven connections for that time and space.
Gallery attendees responded with amusement, awkwardness, confusion, or excitement. Some backed away, most sang back; small groups even formed, of near-strangers spontaneously conversing in song. Incredibly, the process altered not only sentence structures but the thoughts themselves.
With performance, what is it that lingers? What travels forward across time?
The stirring of one's senses. That jolt to the heart and mind.
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