To Kill A Mocking Bird

Born in 1963 in Jhang, Ruby Chishti now lives in Brooklyn, NYC. After graduating in painting from the National College of Arts, Lahore, she disappeared from the art scene for 11 years, taking care of her paralysed mother. In 2001, she re-emerged and took up an artists’ residency at Harris Museum in Preston. Upon her return, she held her first solo show ‘Nawa-e-Suroosh’ at Rohtas II, followed by an enrollment in the Masters in Visual Arts Programme at her old alma mater. Since then, she has participated in several shows and residencies.

Her interest in uncanny materials questions the notion of permanence versus transience, and her work in scraps of fabric bridges the gap between the craft of making dolls and the art of making sculpture. In the interview that follows, she talks about her choice of material, her concerns, and how art has come to mean ‘therapy’ to her. Excerpts:

I am opposed to art acting as a fuel for the market

AA: Your last solo exhibition to date was quite a departure in terms of the issues that you addressed. What was the thought behind assembling that show?

RC: My last exhibition at Rohtas II in Lahore, entitled, ‘Placed, Displaced, Misplaced’ was a step away from my previous practice. Until then, I was making ‘finished’ objects, and I think that was kind of a ‘trap.’ This time, I used material that had no archival value – material that was ephemeral and brittle in nature – such as discarded cloth, straw, felt, etc. The body of work that emerged was in contrast with the current trends of art-making which focus primarily on art produced for the international market. I am opposed to art acting as a fuel for the market.

One of the reasons why I chose to work in those materials is because I wanted to stay away from the clutches of the market. I knew no one’s going to buy this kind of work; no one’s even going to possess it: it’s so fragile that it can’t be transported.

The organisers of my show in London did not want me to display the work I had made because they thought it did not conform to the market trends; it could neither go a long way nor did it fall into any readymade category. At that point, I decided to continue working for myself. I had no desire to ‘get’ anywhere through my work, anyway, but I did not wish to lose my self or compromise my ideals. I was not working towards an audience; on the contrary, I was working on a very personal tenor.

When I came back to Pakistan from the States, I started collecting straw and chaff, twigs and brushwood on the roads while people ridiculed and reacted in a bizarre way. I came across abandoned nests – it was a pleasurable experience that transported me to my childhood, far removed from the commercial constraints of making art. I was going through a new phase in life; not targeting the market.

AA: You’ve said that your work explores gender relations. Does it insinuate feminist ideals?

RC: The feminist point of view dwells on the plight of those women who are suppressed and subjugated, victimised and tortured, or simply ignored. It tends to speak for women who have been prey to male chauvinism, and who consequently lose their voice – women relegated to the status of a second sex, in other words. I don’t relate to this notion of feminism because I don’t see myself as a victimised female. Instead, I relate to its humanitarian aspect that lends a voice to the speechless.

My experience in life has been that of an ordinary woman, and I wish to relate that experience to those women who lead ordinary lives. I made a piece called, ‘…Then I Buried My Pride Along With You…’ based on a verse taken from a poem written by my brother. (He wrote this poem upon my father’s death. He died himself at the young age of twenty-seven). This poem and the work that followed contain my emotions. Since my initial work, ‘My Birth Will Take Place A Thousand Times’ I have been questioning how thoughts form and how conventions become norms and take root in a society. This work came from my experience of growing up as the fourth daughter in a family that desperately wanted a son. It carried the resonance of my grandmother’s voice telling me that no one was happy when I was born. Of course, it made me feel guilty and unwanted but looking back at those times in retrospect, I have surmised that perhaps it was only my share that I got. We tend to learn to accept everything. Today, we have learnt to accept bomb blasts as ‘natural death’.

When a woman becomes a widow, her life ends; she cannot live her life fully and happily in the culture where I belong. In comparison, life moves on in the American culture. When the difference in the two societies is so stark, where does the truth lie? In response to that, the apparition of a winged male figure appeared for the first time in my work, coupled with a female body. The male figure was cast in fiberglass while the female body was soft, stuffed with fabric. In another work, ‘Blemishes of Time II’ made with fabric and Hydrocal plaster, faucets replaced human heads. The idea was to relate the female body to a vessel or a container with the system of control situated outside. If you turn the tap, it will start to flow until it causes a deluge. You can drain her or empty her out. This piece had overt feminine connotations, and could also be interpreted in terms of women as vulnerable beings.

AA: How did you arrive at ‘scaffolding’ as a device to argue your concerns?

RC: When I was making a self-portrait called ‘The Guardian Angel’ in Vermont with twigs, I discovered that I was drawing in space. The material was extremely fragile; the lines were not mechanical – like hand-drawn lines on paper, they had a thick and thin quality about them that led me on to look at ‘scaffolding’ as a drawing device.

I had been witnessing a lot of renovation and construction in Manhattan that inspired me to incorporate scaffolding into my work as a structure or as a drawing that divided space. Scaffolding had always fascinated me – even though it is generally attached to the facades of buildings, it also enshrines the desire to build. So, I constructed a piece with matchsticks and barbecue sticks and metal. I wished to see the same structure in two different materials – one temporary, the other permanent. The structure reminded me of patriarchal hierarchy with the male figure right on top of the ladder – inaccessible and larger than life – and while making it, I realised I wanted to locate it high up in space above myself.

I have always believed in breaking rules

I have always believed in breaking rules, in manipulating materials to see how they react and perform, the reason why I take on the challenge of working in unconventional materials. In spite of their inherent structure and limitations, I enjoy their tactile surfaces and their ability to transform. If I like a product I buy it; then I disintegrate it to see how it’s built. That is what I call ‘image-building’ – to unravel, fabricate and architect.

I never had a child because my desire to nurture and to nurse was already fulfilled

AA: Tell us about ‘Armour’, and the selection of material it’s crafted in.

RC: The content of my work leads to the choice of material. I came across a website created in memory of patients who had died of AIDS, leaving behind unfinished artworks. The website was now inviting artists to come forth and create ‘something’ that would evoke a feeling or spark a thought of fear or hope. I wanted to make something pertaining to the mother who transfers disease unintentionally to her child, and started looking for a material that could signify reproduction. That’s when I thought of sanitary napkins. (After all you cannot separate motherhood from menstruation!). In the work called ‘Armour’, I first cast a baby’s face in clay and then made a plaster mold. After that, I peeled layers of napkins and cast them in a mold with the help of glue. The rest of the body was made directly. I feel being a woman yet not having babies should be a choice. In our society you are worthless if you cannot conceive or bear a child being a female. You are not accepted, anymore, so what is your value? I never had a child because my desire to nurture and to nurse was already fulfilled by taking care of my paralysed mother; in other words, she became my child.

Unlike my experiences of exercising control over what I make with hands, I have no control over what grows inside my body. The question hangs in mid-air even today and continues to harass me. The exercise of choice has a huge impact on the family as well. I called the piece ‘Armour’ because a woman, upon becoming a mother, can protect herself – the child becomes her shield, her defense – against accusations raised by the society. Around the same time, I crafted a man’s turban with sanitary napkins – a typical feminine material.

Women make a considerable contribution to this society – as fuel, as raw material, as catalysts – yet they are never lauded for their services or awarded. They are never allowed to ‘reach out’. I relate women in Pakistan to cows – they are always giving out, so much so that when everything’s been taken away, cows offer you their skin – the leather. The work, ‘Cessation’ relates to that.

AA: Crows appear as a recurrent leitmotif in your work. What is their significance?

RC: My association with crows goes back to my childhood when I used to spend a lot of time with nature. I was not the focus of attention in the family, so I would loiter away climbing trees or watching nature. All the affection that I received as a child was from Mother Nature.

I used to observe crows: how they invaded the bulbul’s nest; how they were attacked by smaller birds without showing resistance because they had done something wrong, they were guilty. Whenever I tried to photograph them, they turned out to be camera-shy. (They only allowed me to make drawings of them). And when I attempted to take pictures hiding the camera, they knew I was pretending, so much so, that they would not take the feed until I had put the camera away.

I have noticed how when a crow gets hurt, the entire clan gets together and caws in a chorus

Other than that, I feel crows watch over you. In an open house like mine, they always knew what activities were taking place; they knew I was growing up there; they knew of a death in the family and would wait for their turn to get food. I have noticed how when a crow gets hurt, the entire clan gets together and caws in a chorus.

I remember my maternal aunt living off in Bahawalnagar among desert dunes tell us that whenever she saw a crow perched on the wall, she would anticipate the arrival of a guest from home. Crows are said to be the harbingers of the arrival of guests. My father was an engineer. Every two months, he would be posted out to a new destination accompanied by his family. I discovered that at each new place we went the landscape changed but somehow the crows remained the same. This is how they became my very ‘own’, and I developed a special relationship with them knowing my surroundings can never be complete without them. Gradually, they entered my work. Since crows collect straw to make homes with, I decided to craft them out with straw and chaff. I wanted to capture their spirit, their ability to survive in very tough conditions, so I fashioned them out of camouflage material. The negative traits associated with them, such as cunning and wickedness cannot be forsaken, though.