The future Art Mill Museum is organising a major exhibition on art and architecture from Pakistan from the 1940s to the present day. Originated in Arabic, the word Manzar (منظر) in Urdu can be translated to mean a scene, a view, a landscape, or a perspective, highlighting the extraordinary vitality of the diverse art scenes in Pakistan and its diasporas.
A selection of approximately 200 paintings, drawings, photographs, videos, sculptures, installations, tapestries, and miniatures present multi-faceted modernities and contemporary practices. Tracing divergent narratives, perspectives, histories and presents, this multidisciplinary exhibition will focus on the deep engagement of artists and architects in continuity and discontinuity, and in the transference of knowledge, resilience and continued ecological concerns.
Spanning over eight decades, this groundbreaking exhibition traces how artists and architects have forged diverse personal and political languages, in dialogue or disjunction with regional styles and international art and world histories. The interconnections with scenes, individuals and communities in the subcontinent and on a global scale are testament to the strength of art withstanding imposed and desired divisions or movements. The land that is geographically defined as present-day Pakistan is an ancient one, even while the country is young.
New commissioned artworks, performances and talks will be part of a vibrant public programme.
Curated by Caroline Hancock, Art Mill Museum Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art; Aurélien Lemonier, Art Mill Museum Curator of Architecture, Design and Gardens; and Zarmeene Shah, independent curator, writer and Director of Graduate Studies at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture (IVS) in Karachi; with Art Mill Museum Senior Exhibition Project Manager Aebhric Coleman. The exhibition is designed by architect Raza Ali Dada (Nayyar Ali Dada & Associates, Lahore).
A catalogue, designed by Kiran Ahmad, expands on the research with essays by important art and architecture historians, educators, artists and architects from Pakistan.