It has been more than 15 years since the time when I used to visit Murree, with family, almost every weekend. But travelling to the same hill station, this time for an artist residency, was different. I had my memories and baggage of being ‘trained’ in the arts. I was looking (or pretending to look) at people and places as an ‘artographer’. Even while interacting with my fellow artists-in-residence, I kept thinking of and questioning the real meaning of gathering at a place to celebrate, create or store experiences.
Pakistan is beginning to have its share of artist-in-residence programs. But what makes an artist residency in Murree special is the place; a space with a rich past and thriving tourism. However, over time the sheer number of tourists and the associated commerce has marred this hill station - the natural scape and historical British Raj architecture and its archives continue to disintegrate. Much needs to be done to restore, document and highlight Murree’s creative possibilities. What better option could one think of than engaging artists, thinkers and writers to reinvigorate, rediscover and recreate such agnostic spaces?
For Saba Khan, the founder of the Murree Museum Artist Residency, the biggest challenge of the project is selecting the right combination of people each year to create synergy. She seeks to bring individuals together with varying backgrounds and nationalities. Khan’s objective for the residency is to “give back to the debilitated hill-station, to preserve its heritage as a historical town. Our objective is to keep alive the spirit of generosity, making it an opportunity for others to create work, to inspire, to be curious. We aim to develop it as a space for thinkers and practitioners.”
Seher Naveed's drawing installation at the exhibition held at Resource Center, Murree
Sarah Mumtaz's embroideries
The Residency’s cottage has been generously donated by Huma and Shahid Qadir and this year’s residency has been funded by USEFP-PUAN. A board of six trustees from the art and business community takes key decisions to run the program. Now in its third year, the residency is highly structured, yet it allows for flexibility to accommodate individual needs.
The closely knit misty wooden cottages amidst a thick layer of clouds and a slight nip in the air; the entangled stone paths; the chirpy rustling of the undergrowth; the whisper of fauna in the thick forests and the very weak internet connection made just the right kind of environment for a retreat. Such unique lodgings inspire artists to produce work in peace, away from the rigmarole of city life. Like any other residency, it offers a productive environment to reinvent and cordon off from all ‘distractions’.
Seher Naveed, a dynamic cultural practitioner and writer from Karachi - and also the Project Manager for this year’s residency - explored people’s anecdotes and narratives around an abandoned house near their cottage. In a community where trespassing is legal, she took on the role of a detective and of an avid storyteller. Her inquiry-based work evolved into texture rubbings of the cottage surfaces, small sketches and indexical photographs.
Pradeep Thalawatta's work on a sand bag found in Murree
Saba Khan's objective is to give back to the debilitated hill-station, to preserve this historic town
Sarah Mumtaz, a passionate, endearing and conscientious visual and performance artist from Lahore, believes that this place-based initiative facilitates an environment where cultural artifacts can be archived and reinterpreted. Continuing her signature visual language, she collaborated with the local craftswomen to embroider images on local fabric. Mumtaz reformulated her drawings with thread and collaborated with her local partners to add marks and images with their traditional embroidery on the same fabric.
The attire, demeanour and preoccupations of the public in Murree inspired Suleman Khilji, a young and exceptionally talented visual practitioner from Quetta. Taking long discursive walks at a place with excessive tourism, he adopts the role of a social scientist to develop an anthropological discourse through his experiences at the hill station. The subtlety and humour in his work holds the viewer for long, and in the process, makes one discover multiple connections in his apparently simple imagery.
Sameera Raja, gallerist, during a studio visit with Sarah Mumtaz
Artists wove Murree's history, culture and demographics into their visual-verbal repertoire
Pradeep Thalawatta, a nationally and internationally acclaimed Visual Artist from Colombo, Sri Lanka, worked with his idiosyncratic vocabulary by using indigenous material to create pigment and mark-making tools for his large mixed-media paintings. Fascinated by the local material and objects around him, he exoticises them further by recomposing their texture, colour and form through his idea of dislocation – drawing upon his association with the objects he consumes in Murree and with his memories and experiences embodied within them.
All artists wove Murree’s history, culture and demographics into their visual-verbal repertoire. Quddus Mirza and Sameera Raja visited the artistic spaces at different times of the residency and Saira Ansari visited Murree from the UAE, as one of the writers-in-residence. All of them engaged with the artists, shared their practices and responded to each artist’s work individually. The works of all artists culminated in an exhibition at the Resource Center, Kashmir Point. The event was open to the community, inaugurated by the Assistant Commissioner of Murree, and was well received on the whole.
The residents, top from left - Suleman Khilji, Pradeep Thalawatta_ bottom from left - Sarah Mumtaz, Seher Naveed, Saira Ansari
Perhaps the most meaningful segment of the Murree Residency for me was the community engagement with street children from migrant Gujjar communities. Whether they played with paint and clay, explored color and form or indulged in an active conversation with the guest artists, this relationship was insightful, enriching and perhaps up-for-debate too. Initially I wondered if this small interactivity was to yield something substantive and consequential or if it was just one of those many patronising, self-congratulatory attempts by the artists to appease themselves and their immediate community. But experiencing these workshops first-hand convinced me that they certainly had a lot to offer. Children are powerful contributors to any society; they think afresh, are more receptive to ideas and, undoubtedly, not afraid of questioning. Hence the energy they offer to any interaction is unparalleled. These workshops offered a ground for genuine communication, one that emerged organically through working with art supplies. Hence, the language of the arts was more of a learning tool to stimulate young minds to step out of their daily routine of begging on the streets. The artists’ points of discussion ranged from ideas about design elements, to colour as a stimulant, all the way to pre-conceived notions of the local residents about the guest artists.
The author conducting a workshop with the children participating in the program
In a nutshell, what one takes back from a residency of this nature is the interaction and the joy of experiencing both like-minded and diverse people. It gives you the time to take a break, to reflect and retreat from the rut of city life, because this experience will eventually yield something that is rich, long-lasting and unassuming. Often, one might not produce tangible work, and that should be fine - let it be a reboot where one only celebrates being an artist.
Rabeya Jalil is a visual artist and works at the Beaconhouse National University School of Visual Arts and Design as an Assistant Professor. She completed her Art Education (Ed.M.) from Columbia University Teachers College in New York on a Fulbright Scholarship
