How We Mark The Land

2. FAZAL RIZVI HOW WE MARK THE LAND
This is an image from the ongoing exhibit ‘A Fallen Flag Is Not Stateless’, at the Museum of Speculated Objects.
The exhibition looks at the materiality and form, and the meanings and associations attached, embedded within,
and projected onto these various stretches of fabric across the length and breadth of human civilization.
PROJECTS
ON PAPER
PART 1 HOW WE MARK THE LAND

3. The Scroll will be a space for art and
ideas that are not confined by the notion
of walls.
Indo-Persian miniature paintings were
usually bound in the form of an album for
personal enjoyment. These were certainly
not meant to be framed and hemmed by
glass and displayed on a wall as a dec-
orative object but were meant to invoke
contemplation, reflection, and an intimacy
with the work. Therefore, these particular
exhibitions were realised in the form of
albums in the hand of the viewer. While
in other parts of Asia such as China, art
was collected in the form of scrolls. When
a landscape or a calligraphic text was
meant to be pored over, the scroll was
unravelled slowly to view the said work.
The object of the work of art was not in
the display, but in the private delibera-
tion.
The AAN Foundation is pleased to be
supporting Scroll: Projects on Paper. The
idea will be to engage with the greater
artistic discourse in the country and be-
yond and as an intersection for works of
art, texts and ideas that are not confined
by brick and mortar. These projects will
manifest themselves in the form of an
exhibition, a museum, lab, a forum or a
platform, but on another medium; the
mellifluous and meditative quality that is
the very feature of paper.
The exhibition will therefore never cease
to exist but will keep engaging with
successive viewers as well as those who
want a re-visit the space.
AMNA NAQVI
FOUNDER & DIRECTOR
GANDHARA-ART SPACE &
AAN FOUNDATION
Benedict Anderson in his seminal work ‘Imagined Communities’,
discusses the concept of print capitalism. He notes that an
imagined community of a nation is formed through the dis-
course of newspapers and other forms of print media, usually
in a single language, which is proliferated through capitalist
networks.
Cartography is discussed as a process of marking of territory
and nations. This process can occur through various ways, one
of which is newspapers and nation-based discourses dissem-
inated through this medium. The power and potential to thus
‘mark the land’ through this format is a jumping off point for this
publication, launched on the occasion of the exhibition ‘How We
Mark the Land’, at Gandhara-Art Space in Karachi from October
27 through December 9.
The publication also stems from another concern. In this
anthropogenic age we find ourselves beset by an almost
overwhelming amount of information, which we experience in
many different ways including social media, newspapers, glossy
magazines and more. In this over-produced current reality of
ours, this publication seeks to introduce the idea of discourse
and exhibition through a simpler and accessible medium. A
well-produced exhibition is an important part of our art world
here in Pakistan, but we are increasingly finding the need to
have more diversity in our dialogues. The publication ‘Scroll:
Projects on Paper’ imagines exhibitions in the format of print,
reaching wider audiences and act as a platform for discourse
around important themes.
The exhibition and its conceptual concerns are an opportunity
for the first iteration of this publication. Some of the artists in
the exhibition – Fazal Rizvi, Shahana Rajani & Zahra Malkani
with Abeera Kamran, Naiza Khan and Roohi Ahmed were invited
alongside Bani Abidi and Omer Wasim and Saira Sheikh to
re-imagine past and current projects into print format. They
broadened ideas of cartography and creation of identity through
nationalisms into various conceptual frameworks. Bani Abidi’s
work ‘The News’ explores how language as promoted by the
state becomes a marker for nation identity as different and sep-
arate from the other. Similar ideas are explored through the work
of Roohi Ahmed. Naiza Khan, on the other hand, investigates the
relationship of colonial explorers reading weather patterns as
a way to gain and create knowledge about their newly claimed
territories. In these disparate and diverse ways, the artists with-
in these pages allow the viewer to grapple with different ways
of knowing and learning one’s own identities and surroundings.
AZIZ SOHAIL
CURATOR
SCROLL: PROJECTS ON PAPER & HOW WE MARK THE LAND
SCROLL: PROJECTS ON PAPER
PART 1: HOW WE MARK THE LAND
Cover image: Naiza Khan
How We Mark the Land Becomes Part of its History, 2014
Charcoal on Waterford Paper
Image courtesy of the artist
Gandhara - Art Space, Karachi
October 27 - December 9, 2016
Envisioned & Curated by Aziz Sohail
Designed by Aziza Ahmad
Printed by Royal Eastern Offset
© 2016, Gandhara - art
© Text: Authors & Gandhara - art
© Artwork images: Artists & Gandhara-art
Published by Gandhara - art
Printed in Karachi.
First Edition: December, 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, copied or trasmitted in any form or by any
means, mechanical or electronic, including photogra-
phy without prior permission in writing from the artists,
contributors and publisher.
PART 1: HOW WE MARK THE LAND
PROJECTS
ON PAPER
Shahana Rajani <srh450@gmail.com> Sat, Nov 26, 2016 at 1:36 PM
To: Abeera K <abeera.k@gmail.com>, Zahra Malkani <zahramalkani@gmail.com>
i love how you describe writing the code for the kalair page as this really tactile/sensorial experience - a way of exploring the materiality of
Gadap and its ecologies. and you’re right, strangely enough, distance/physical separation didn’t impede our cross-exchange.. i dont imagine
the process to have been much different had we been living in the same city!
zahra, have been thinking about what you said in the beginning, this (gendered) anxiety of being self-indulgent. and i know that its super
important to take this space/time to reflect on our methodologies and experiences of working together, but i also hesitated a bit to center
ourselves in this text. since our research has been about these incredibly urgent issues of land and dispossession, i have constantly felt an
anxiety/responsibility to be accountable to the people who we interviewed and worked with, who facilitated our research, who were incredibly
generous with their time and sharing of knowledge, to acknowledge their labour and participation, to make their struggles visible. an anxiety
that this collaboration doesn’t become an instance of a temporary solidarity, that starts and ends at the convenience of the researcher/artist.
however, over the past few months as we’ve spent time with and sifted through this gathered archive together, brainstorming on frameworks
for the website, we had some really important conversations (about our intents, shortcomings, positionalities and privileges) that helped me
think through this anxiety. Urvashi Butalia’s insight on the problematics of oral history work (as a feminist scholar) was also really useful, as
she acknowledges the imbalance of power - ‘for the most part i watched, listened, recorded, while people laid their lives bare.’ erasing our
own presence as interviewers, hides this uncomfortable power dynamic. she explains that ‘the absence of the ‘I’ helps create distance, an
illusion of objectivity.’ her text really clicked for me! it made me realize that these transcripts are not unmediated texts, they did not write/
record themselves… to make clear that the research is the result of intense personal involvements and emotional entanglements, and full of
gaps in terms of access/representation. to think through what Spivak calls the double bind - our alliance with ongoing struggles in Gadap
but also our complicities within power structures of the academy and neo-liberal development etc. and the three of us dwelling on these
issues/problematics together, coming up with ways on how to make our presence/subjectivities visible in this research, to make sure that the
website is not just an objective collection of documentation - these debates and conversations were really imp for me. they really pushed and
challenged me to rethink our research in ways that i would not have done on my own.
[Quoted text hidden]
Zahra Malkani <zahramalkani@gmail.com>
Sun, Nov 27, 2016 at 6:03 PM
To: Shahana Rajani <srh450@gmail.com>
Cc: Abeera K <abeera.k@gmail.com>
Abeera, I thought it was really interesting what you said about the geographical dislocation
between yourself and Gadap (and I think this connects with some of what you said too
Shahana) in that there has, of course, also always been what feels like an insurmountable
distance/dislocation between ourselves (me and Shahana) and Gadap despite us being in
close geographical proximity and spending a great deal of time there over this past year,
over the Gadap sessions and after.
And how for you, Abeera, its almost like there has been this honesty and consistency, a
smoothness and situatedness, in the entirety of your process being remote and virtual.
This makes the word ‘dis-location’ really interesting and inadequate to me - where
disconnect, fracture, gaps, opacities, walls, boundaries are only understood in terms of
geography and space.
It makes me think a lot about this tendency in activists and the bourgeois Left over
here where there is this fetishization of ‘on-ground’ organising/work/activism between
communities as opposed to political work online - which is denigrated as a sphere of leisure
and futility and posturing. which is of course absurd considering the amount of work those
in power invest into policing, surveilling and shaping and occupying and mobilising the
cybersphere.
It seems to me to be a hierarchy of activism that privileges this distinct organic human body,
and in doing so privileges good bodies: the able bodied, the male bodied, etc. and what
I always found strange about this idea is that it assumes that physical proximity enables
or entails or is enough for solidarity -- or that intimacy is not laden with the potential of
extreme violence. the idea that the sphere of physicality is where solidarity is located and
negotiated through physical presence - and that sounds to me like such a flawed and
simplistic and lazy idea of solidarity and presence.
The work ‘on ground’ in Gadap during the Gadap Sessions was marked by boundaries. We
spent all of our time on the frontiers of this gap, this faultline, this fracture. Encountering,
respecting, maintaining, drawing, overcoming, collapsing, crashing into boundaries. Seeing,
understanding, sometimes crossing and sometimes maintaining distances. because we may
be just x miles apart but our worlds are vastly, vastly, different. so i think what the physical
proximity did more than anything else was make it clear just how real the distance is and
how insurmountable it is and thats fine, maybe even good, to stop trying to transgress that
boundary, and just work around it, to respect and embrace each others opacities, as artists
or researchers or allies or activists, whatever those last 2 categories mean idk.
So I also love what you said about coding the kaleidoscope being like playing with the
folds of the kalair and this kind of cyborgian experience of touching and reaching and what
kind of touching and reaching and connecting and building technology enables. basically
that either way - in Gadap doing kacheri or in another continent skyping or coding - we
are both doing the work of trying to connect across disparate bodies and geographies
through technologies and languages that are imperfect, flawed, partial, broken, differentially
accessible, limited but still full of possiblity etc
Shit this got so long. Really feeling your thoughts on the Urvashi Butalia quote! I guess it is
a scarily thin line between centering ourselves and owning up to the ways in which we are
already ‘central’ - that we can only narrate what is happening in Gadap through our own
experience of and relationship to it... I think one of the most crucial things about doing this
work slowly has been trying to fulfill the need to constantly be reflecting on it, on how and
why and where we are doing it. The work is so incredibly fraught and difficult, full of pitfalls
and barriers, and you can only build the roads by walking, so also important to acknowledge
and archive and index and register all the barriers and pitfalls and fuck ups along the way.
[Quoted text hidden]
Abeera K <abeera.k@gmail.com>
Sun, Nov 27, 2016 at 8:46 PM
To: Shahana Rajani <srh450@gmail.com>
Cc: Zahra Malkani <zahramalkani@gmail.com>
Is it weird that I didn’t feel anxiety about centering ourselves in
this email thread?! (questioning my moral fibre at the mo!)
I saw this as an opportunity to reflect on our
process+methodologies, to identify where we failed to be
responsible in our work with the research and where and how
we succeeded to acknowledge our position of privilege and
use that understanding to situate our work within a critical
framework. The three of us reflecting on this together I thought
would further help us in locating our visuals within concrete
bodies and geographies, and three of those bodies are ours. By
the time we started speaking about Gadap you both had already
become acutely aware of the imperative to be self reflexive in
this project, so because of you I already approached the project
with this built into my understanding of it. And now im seeing
this conversation as the second and natural part of us being
self reflexive and recognising that our imperfect languages, our
contextually bound bodies and mind, our disparate experiences
and broken understandings have produced and articulated this
research, so the work will not and cannot be objective. Also
Zahra now that you’ve noted how my being geographically
remote made my experience smooth I’m like shit yes that so
true! Not sure how i feel about this right now, feel like I missed
out on the very important part of negotiating the boundaries
you mention while being in Gadap but also at the same time
fascinated by how working through this project in this cyborgian
way made me feel VERY situated in the research, and made
me see the possibilities of this work before I saw the flaws/
limitations/gaps. I’m just left wondering if this was a false sense
of situatedness...I fucking hope not!
The critical point in my understanding of this work came when
you (Zahra) sent me Catherine D’Ignazio’s essay on feminist
data visualisation. It really cracked open my skull to let the
light in. I started thinking about how to introduce uncertainty
and flux into our work. How do we represent not just what we
saw, but what cannot be visualised? How do we problematise
our presence and the presence of the other researchers in
the Gadap Sessions instead of a footnote acknowledgment
as is usually the case. And the question that looms largest
in my mind, how do we destabilize our representations of
the research, how do we structure the website so that the
structure itself allows for dissent/conflict, to move beyond just
‘interactive visualisation’. The last thing I want is to produce
more rhetoric and code a website that has a prescriptive
way to navigate it. To sum it up, what are the politics of data
visualisation?? I don’t have the answer for these yet but god I
hope we get close to answering this as we work on the website.
ps. The one anxiety that persists with me is what if this is a
temporary solidarity, like you noted Shahana. I hope we are able
to do better by ourselves and those we have worked with in
Gadap.
[Quoted text hidden]
SCROLL: PROJECTS ON PAPER

4. SCROLL: PROJECTS ON PAPER SCROLL: PROJECTS ON PAPER
HOW WE MARK THE LAND
GENDER/LABOUR/LOCATION
Zahra Malkani <zahramalkani@gmail.com> Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 11:06 PM
To: Abeera K <abeera.k@gmail.com>, Shahana Rajani <srh450@gmail.com>
Hey guys,
Just wanted to kick off the conversation that we are hoping will turn into a text for Aziz’s publication by
talking about why I think this would be a good format/medium and some of my thoughts on it.
I keep on having this anxiety that it is super self-indulgent to publish what is essentially just a
conversation between the 3 of us,even though,I mean,the entire history of art and theory is basically
just a conversation between men - so like,why not.But as a woman I question it,and for that reason also
feel pushed to do it.
One reason I felt this format would work was because somehow the prospect of the three of us working
together on one short text felt like a much taller task and more burdensome then the 3 of us working
together on a massive archive and building a pretty extensive,complex website out of it.I guess
because of the limitations of it in length and medium.And I think that has to do with the methodology of
how we have worked together so far,which has been us in conversation over a pretty prolonged period
of time.And now,after the show,we are again taking it pretty easy haha and going slow.Which is of
course not because we are lazy,all 3 of us have many other projects in work and in life.But somehow
duration has really been a thing in this project,and I think duration and intimacy have come hand in hand
in our collaborative process - and that is something I definitely strive for in my work now in general,for it
to be collaborative,intimate,and durational.
But also I think our desire to go with this format also came from experiences around the show and
after - where many people seemed very confused by the collaborative aspect of our work and wanted
to know (in detail) the terms and processes and boundaries of the collaboration - which we often felt
very much at a loss to describe and it sometimes even felt like we were being asked something very
intimate.because in some ways it is very organic and inexplicable and personal,the process (though
perhaps it is important to be able explicate I think).But I feel we often felt violated or irritated by those
kind of questions,which is perhaps not fair because perhaps collaboration,though it is growing as
artistic practice,is still new to people? And I think the questions and our discomfort about them came
because perhaps at the core of these questions is this (patriarchal) idea of the genius artist and the
brains behind a work and that solitary genius alone in *his* studio or workshop or by his laptop - the
artwork emerging from an individual gifted sublime brain rather than encounters and togetherness and
intimacy between people/women.Or like what Valerie Solanas says in the Scum Manifesto : “in a female
society the only art,the only culture,will be conceited,kooky,funky females grooving on each other and
on everything else in the universe”
So perhaps it would be good since people have been interested in process,to have a conversation
and try to articulate what the work looked and felt like.And also since ‘conversation’ has been the
main method of our collaboration/communication,what better way to unveil our methods,make the
collaborative process visible,than to just make a conversation public.
I guess one thing that may happen with us using this format is that we are leaving the content we had
been working on out of the conversation,i.e.: Gadap,the Gadap sessions,the archive etc.Perhaps thats
OK? But if any of you want to bring it back in the convo that would be cool too! Over to one of yous!
ONLINE
> Shahana Rajani
> Zahra Malkani
> Abeera Kamran
NEW MESSAGE
THE NEWS
BANI ABIDI HOW WE MARK THE LAND
नमस्कार
आज की मुख्य समाचार इस प्रकार है. एक भारतीय और एक पाकिस्तानी व्यक्ती
के बीच एक जटिल समस्या उतपन्न हो गई है. हमारे विशेष सम्वाद्दाता बताते हैं की
दोनोंव्यक्ति परस्पर प्रतिवेशी है. समस्या का जड़ इस प्रकार है. भारतीय व्यक्ति
के पास एक मुर्गी है और हर दिन वह अपने घर के सामने उद्यान में झाँक कर
देखता है की मुर्गी ने अंडे उतपन्न कीये है या नहीं. सम्वाद्दाता बतातें है कि कल
जब भारतीय अंडे लेने के विचार से उठे तो उन्होंने देखा की उसकी मुर्गी ने उसके
प्रतिवेशी पाकिस्तानी व्यक्ती के उद्यान में अंडे उतपन्न कीये हैं. तत पश्चात, उन्होंने
ये भी देखा की पाकिस्तानी ने उस अंडे को अपने प्रयोग के लिए उठा लिया है. इस
कारण उन्होंने पाकिस्तानी व्यक्ति को अपना विरोध दर्शाया की मुर्गी उनकी सम्पति
है. पाकिस्तानी व्यक्ति ने कहा की मुर्गी भले उनकी हो परन्तु उद्यान तो उन ही कि
निजी सम्पति है. कुछ देर विवाह्जिस्बत रहने के बाद दोनोंइस बात पर सहमित
हुए की समस्या का हल इस प्रकार किया जाए. भारतीय, ने प्रस्ताव रखा के , हमारे
वंश में ऐसे विवाधो का सरल उपाय है. में तुम्हारे मुंह पर वार करता हूँ और फिर
हम इस बात को नापे के तुम्हारे उठ खड़े होने तक कितना समय व्यतीत होता है
और इसके पश्चात तुम मुझपर उसी प्रकार से प्रतिगात करते हो जैसे की मैंने तुम
पर वार किया. अगर मेरे उठने तक अधिक समय व्यतीत होता है तो विजय तुम्ही
को प्राप्त होगी और में पराजित हूँगा. पाकिस्तानी व्यक्ति इस योजना के अनुसार
काम्या करने के लिए प्रस्तुत हुआ. भारतीय व्यक्ति ने लोहे से भी भारी जूते पहने
और फिर उसने पाकिस्तानी पर आक्रमण कर उसके मस्तिके श पर गहरा आघात
किया. पाकिस्तानी व्यक्ति अत्यंत आघात के अत्यंत पीड़िता से कतराता हुआ
धरती पे लोट-पोट हो गया. तत पश्चात जब पाकिस्तानी व्यक्ति प्रतीगात करने के
कारण उठ खड़ा हुआ तो भारतीय व्यक्ति ने कहा, “लो भाई, अंडे का आनंद तुम
ही अफो करो.” विशेष सम्वाद्दाता ने बताया की स्तिथि तनाव पुंह पुन्यन्त्रम में है.
‫علیمک‬ ‫اسالم‬
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‫ن‬
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‫ن‬
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‫ن‬
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‫ع‬
‫دیکھتا‬ ‫کیا‬ ‫تو‬ ‫ٹھا‬
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‫ا‬ ‫صبح‬ ‫جب‬ ‫ن‬
�‫کستا‬ ‫پ‬
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� ‫ن‬
�‫ہندوستا‬ ‫انڈا‬
‫پ‬
� ‫انڈے‬ ‫وہ‬ ‫کہ‬ ‫ہےل‬‫پ‬� ‫ےس‬ ‫اس‬ ‫ےہ۔‬ ‫ی‬
�‫م‬
‫ق‬
�‫عال‬ ‫ن‬
�‫ہندوستا‬ ‫ہر‬ ‫ب‬
� ‫ےس‬ ‫حدوں‬ ‫یک‬ ‫اس‬ ‫انڈا‬ ‫کہ‬ ‫ےہ‬
‫کیا‬ ‫ار‬ ‫ظ‬
�‫ا‬ ‫اک‬ ‫ت‬
�‫امح‬‫ز‬‫م‬ ‫پ‬
� ‫حرکت‬ ‫اس‬
ََ
‫ا‬‫ر‬‫فو‬
‫ن‬
� ‫اس‬ ‫تھا۔‬ ‫اک‬ ُ
‫چ‬ ‫کر‬ ‫قبضہ‬ ‫پ‬
� ‫انڈے‬ ‫ویس‬‫ڑ‬ ‫پ‬
� ، ‫ت‬
�‫جتا‬ ‫حق‬
‫ہوا۔‬ ‫پیدا‬ ‫ی‬
�‫م‬ ‫رسحدوں‬ ‫یک‬ ‫س‬
ُ
‫ا‬ ‫یہ‬ ‫کیونکہ‬ ‫ےہ‬ ‫ملکیت‬ ‫یک‬ ‫س‬
ُ
‫ا‬ ‫انڈا‬ ‫کہ‬ ‫تھا‬ ‫ہکنا‬ ‫یہ‬ ‫اک‬ ‫ن‬
�‫ہندوستا‬ ‫مگر‬
‫ہکا‬
‫ن‬
� ‫اس‬ ‫رکیھ‬ ‫ز‬ ‫ی‬
�‫و‬ ‫ج‬
‫ت‬
� ‫ایک‬
‫ن‬
� ‫ن‬
�‫کستا‬ ‫پ‬
� ‫کہ‬ ‫تھا‬ ‫واال‬ ‫یہ‬ ‫ن‬
�‫نلک‬ ‫ہر‬ ‫ب‬
� ‫ےس‬ ‫حدوں‬ ‫یک‬ ‫ذیب‬ ‫ت‬
� ‫ا‬‫ڑ‬‫جھگ‬
‫ن‬
�‫ناکل‬ ‫حل‬ ‫اک‬ ‫س‬
ُ
‫ا‬ ‫ہوتو‬
‫ق‬
�‫چا‬ ‫ن‬
� ‫پ‬
� ‫ت‬ ‫ب‬
� ‫کیس‬ ‫اگر‬ ‫کہ‬ ‫ےہ‬ ‫ئ‬
�‫آ‬ ‫چیل‬ ‫رمس‬ ‫ایک‬ ‫ی‬
�‫م‬ ‫خاندان‬ ‫امہرے‬ ‫کہ‬
‫کہ‬
‫گ‬
� ‫ی‬
�‫دیکھ‬ ‫یہ‬ ‫مہ‬ ‫اور‬
‫گ‬
� ‫کروں‬ ‫وار‬ ‫ایک‬ ‫اک‬ ‫الت‬ ‫پ‬
� ‫مبارک‬
‫ئ‬
�‫رو‬ ‫ہارے‬ ‫ت‬
� ‫ی‬
�‫م‬ ‫ہےل‬‫پ‬� ‫ےئل‬ ‫ےک‬
‫وار‬ ‫پ‬
� ‫منہ‬ ‫ے‬ ‫ی‬
�‫م‬ ‫طرح‬ ‫یس‬
ُ
‫ا‬ ‫ت‬
� ‫پھر‬ ‫ےہ۔‬ ‫لگتا‬ ‫وقت‬ ‫کتنا‬ ‫ی‬
�‫م‬
‫ن‬
�‫آ‬ ‫واپس‬ ‫حواس‬ ‫و‬ ‫ہوش‬ ‫ہارے‬ ‫ت‬
�
‫ن‬
�‫ہندوستا‬ ‫۔‬
‫گ‬
�
‫ئ‬
�‫جا‬ ‫ن‬
�‫ما‬ ‫ملکیت‬ ‫یک‬ ‫یس‬
ُ
‫ا‬ ‫انڈا‬ ‫جیتا‬ ‫جو‬ ‫۔‬
‫گ‬
�
‫ئ‬
�‫جا‬ ‫کیا‬ ‫درج‬ ‫وقت‬ ‫پھر‬ ‫اور‬
‫گ‬
�‫کرو‬
‫کہ‬ ‫ہکا‬
‫ئ‬
�‫ہو‬
‫ت‬
�‫بتا‬ ‫حال‬ ‫دید‬ ‫ش‬
�‫چ‬
‫ن‬
� ‫ر‬
‫گ‬
�‫ن‬ ‫مہ‬ ‫ن‬
� ‫امہرے‬ ‫ہوگیا۔‬ ‫ض‬
�‫ا‬‫ر‬ ‫پ‬
� ‫ز‬ ‫ی‬
�‫و‬ ‫ج‬
‫ت‬
� ‫اس‬ ‫ویس‬‫ڑ‬ ‫پ‬
�
‫ےک‬ ‫ن‬
�‫ہندوستا‬ ‫الت‬ ‫ایک‬ ‫اور‬ ‫ی‬
�‫آ‬ ‫کر‬ ‫ن‬ ‫پ‬
� ‫ت‬
�‫جو‬ ‫بھاری‬ ‫بیھ‬ ‫ےس‬ ‫لوےہ‬ ‫ےس‬ ‫اندر‬ ‫ےک‬ ‫گھر‬ ‫ن‬
�‫کستا‬ ‫پ‬
�
‫بعد‬ ‫منٹ‬ ‫چ‬
‫ن‬
� ‫پ‬
�
‫گ‬
�‫ل‬
‫ن‬
�‫کھا‬ ‫ی‬
�‫ھاڑ‬ ‫چ‬ ‫پ‬
� ‫ےس‬ ‫تلکیف‬ ‫و‬ ‫درد‬ ‫اور‬ ‫ہوا‬ ‫فرش‬ ‫د‬ ‫پ‬
� ُ
‫س‬ ‫ن‬
�‫ہندوستا‬ ‫۔‬ ‫یک‬ ‫وار‬ ‫پ‬
� ‫منہ‬
‫ویس‬‫ڑ‬ ‫پ‬
� ‫ن‬
�‫ہندوستا‬ ”‫منٹ‬ ‫چ‬
‫ن‬
� ‫پ‬
�“ ‫ی‬
�‫د‬ ‫جواب‬
‫ن‬
� ‫ن‬
�‫کستا‬ ‫پ‬
�”
‫گ‬
�‫ل‬ ‫وقت‬ ‫کتنا‬ ‫ےھ‬ ‫ج‬‫“م‬ ‫پوچھا‬ ‫کر‬ ‫ٹھ‬
ُ
‫ا‬
‫ن‬
� ‫س‬
ُ
‫ا‬
‫۔‬ ‫ہوں‬ ‫ت‬
�‫کر‬ ‫عزت‬ ‫یک‬ ‫دعوے‬ ‫ہارے‬ ‫ت‬
� ‫ی‬
�‫م‬ ‫ی‬
�‫د‬ ‫جواب‬
‫ن‬
� ‫ن‬
�‫کستا‬ ‫پ‬
�”‫ےہ‬ ‫ری‬ ‫ب‬
� ‫ی‬ ‫ی‬
�‫م‬ ‫“اب‬ ‫ہکا‬
‫ن‬
�
‫اشتعال‬ ‫حاالت‬ ‫مطابق‬ ‫ےک‬ ‫وں‬ ‫ب‬
�‫خ‬ ‫زہ‬ ‫ت‬
� ‫کرو۔‬ ‫چاہو‬ ‫جو‬ ‫ساتھ‬ ‫ےک‬ ‫اس‬ ‫ت‬
� ‫ےہ‬ ‫ملکیت‬ ‫ہاری‬ ‫ت‬
� ‫انڈا‬
‫۔‬ ‫ی‬
�‫ہ‬ ‫ی‬
�‫م‬ ‫قابو‬ ‫مگر‬ ‫ز‬ ‫ی‬
�‫انگ‬
Shahana Rajani <srh450@gmail.com>
Thu, Nov 24, 2016 at 1:30 AM
To: Abeera K <abeera.k@gmail.com>, Zahra
Malkani <zahramalkani@gmail.com>
The experience of working together has reminded
me that collaboration is a politics of time and care; a
willingness to share, exchange, be vulnerable/honest/
dependent, to engage in differences. To a great extent I
think my desire for collaborative practice has emerged
from frustrations with the hetropatriarchal structures of
the art world; as acts/strategies of retaliation against
espoused practices of individualism/isolation at the
heart of the art school/community (deriving from, as
Zahra you point out, myths of the male artist but also
male colonizer as genius).
As we attempted to connect with ongoing struggles in
the city, to collectively experiment and think through
the possibilties/limitations of countervisualities
that challenge and lay bare the violence of resource
extraction, colonial environmentalism and neo-liberal
exploitation of indigenous land and peoples in Gadap,
what emerged from our conversations and time spent,
was also a very personal exchange - of love, care and
friendship. The internet was not only the medium for
our art work, but also the medium for our conversations
(since we’re not living in the same city) - a process
that has unfolded over many months, through email
exchanges, skype dates, whatsapp messaging and
dropbox sharing. So alongside the Gadap archive
where we documented the violence and erasures of
development, another meaningful archive has emerged
from our process of hanging out, working together - an
exchange of texts, images and emojis, of ideas and
concerns, of daily life etc. And I mention this, because
at the exhibition people kept trying to understand
our collaboration as a division of labour. People were
repeatedly asking who took the photographs/videos,
who wrote the text, who designed, who coded? And I
remember these questions felt intrusive and upsetting. I
did not want to reduce our collaboration into a who-did-
what chart for the ease of others. This personal archive
that I am thinking back to, for me that is constitutive of
our process of collaboration.
Was also thinking about that screenshot of the code
that Abeera you sent us during the kaleidoscope work,
and how alien it seemed to me, like a hidden transcript.
Similarly, I remember you mentioning that despite the
photos and videos we had shared of Gadap, its spaces
remained elusive and hard to grasp since you hadn’t
physically been there. In this aspect, our collaboration is
not marked by uniformity but has been determined and
structured by our different locations/access/abilities,
we often had very different entry points and dwellings.
And the internet became our space for sharing and
coming together,but also for collisions and intersections
of our different experiences and relationalities... Not
sure where I’m going with this yet, lol.
Abeera K <abeera.k@gmail.com>
Sat, Nov 26, 2016 at 1:55 AM
To: Shahana Rajani <srh450@gmail.com>
Cc: Zahra Malkani <zahramalkani@gmail.com>
Hey hey,
Thank you for starting this off!
Shahana I <3 how you phrased it, “collaboration is a politics of time and care”. This way of working together
required implicit trust in each other and a relationship that extended beyond the limited boundaries of this
work. As a graphic designer nearly all of my work is defined by exhaustive collaborative discussions with
the client so the pointed questions at our collaboration in this project really threw me off. Something that
seemed to me to be the core of our project, our intimate prolonged collaboration turned out to be the least
understood. Our personal archive of conversations (relevant +irrelevant), screenshots, voice notes and
sketches is what allowed a joint authorial voice to emerge for this project and I def feel less forgiving than
Zahra of people’s silly questions about the division of labour in this work lol
I think for me the experience of being geographically dislocated from gadap, really impacted the way I
understood and responded to this project. I was only accessing the landscape and negotiating it through
the internet, and then articulating/visualising all of the research in the same medium that I received it in
i.e the internet. I found this cyclical process to be really immersive and it allowed me to anchor myself in
the code I was writing in a way that felt liberating and real (which is perhaps weird because gadap was
never real for me in the conservative physical sense?). But writing the math/code for the kaleidoscope
page made me feel like I was holding the kalair leaves in my hand, bending them in the sunlight at will.
Sometimes if I consider how different the dynamic of us working together would be if all of us were in the
same city, it strikes me that perhaps it would not be that different at all. We would still be emailing, skyping,
whatsapping each other as we tried to build on the internet the ‘uneven geography’ that is Gadap. What do
you think? Its easy to romanticise the idea of being in the same physical space and vibing off each other
but somehow I didn’t really miss it in this project (except for not being present at the exhibition opening, at
which i def thought UGH long distance sucks)
Also will write more and really looking forward to hearing more from you. Feel like my head is emerging from
a mist.
[Quoted text hidden]
--
www.abeerakamran.com
THE
NEWS
BANI ABIDI
Salam-o-Alaikum.
Today’s latest news.A strange problem has arisen between a Pakistani
and an Indian.Our witnesses say that both are neighbours.Between them
is a border that is not difficult to cross.The argument between them is as
follows: the Pakistani owned a chicken and every morning he used to check
whether the chicken had laid an egg or not.Witnesses say an unusual
incident happened yesterday morning- the chicken crossed the border
and laid the egg in the Indian neighbour’s territory.When the Pakistani
woke up in the morning he noticed that the egg was in the territory of the
Indian.Before he could get the egg,the neighbour had already claimed it.
He protested but the Indian said the egg belongs to him as it was laid in his
territory.
The fight was going to break beyond civilised limits until the Pakistani came
up with a solution.He said,“In our family there is a tradition that if there is
some sort of a problem then to solve it,one person first hits the face of the
other and then sees how long it takes for the victim to come back to his
senses.In the same way the victim reciprocates and hits the first person’s
face and sees how long it takes for him to surface”.The Indian neighbour
agreed to this.
Our witnesses say that the Pakistani came out of his house wearing a shoe
heavier than iron and kicked the Indian in his face.The Indian fell to the
ground reeling with pain.After 5 minutes he got up and asked,“how long did
it take?”.The Pakistani said “5 minutes”.The Indian said,“now it is my turn”.
The Pakistani said,“No that wont be necessary.I respect your claim,the egg
is your property,you can do what you want with it.”
According to latest reports the situation is tense but under control.
Namaste.
Today’s latest news.A strange problem has arisen between a Pakistani
and an Indian.Our witnesses say that both are neighbours.Between them
is a border that is not difficult to cross.The argument between them is as
follows: the Indian owned a chicken and every morning he used to check
whether the chicken had laid an egg or not.Witnesses say an unusual
incident happened yesterday morning- the chicken crossed the border and
laid the egg in the Pakistani neighbour’s territory.When the Indian woke up
in the morning he noticed that the egg was in the territory of the Pakistani.
Before he could get the egg,the neighbour had already claimed it.He
protested but the Pakistani said the egg belongs to him as it was laid in his
territory.
The fight was going to break beyond civilised limits until the Indian came up
with a solution.He said,“In our family there is a tradition that if there is some
sort of a problem then to solve it,one person first hits the face of the other
and then sees how long it takes for the victim to come back to his senses.
In the same way the victim reciprocates and hits the first person’s face and
sees how long it takes for him to surface”.The Pakistani neighbour agreed
to this.
Our witnesses say that the Indian came out of his house wearing a shoe
heavier than iron and kicked the Pakistani in his face.The Pakistani fell to
the ground reeling with pain.After 5 minutes he got up and asked,“how long
did it take?”.The Indian said “5 minutes”.The Pakistani said,“now it is my
turn”.The Indian said,“No that wont be necessary.I respect your claim,the
egg is your property,you can do what you want with it.”
According to latest reports the situation is tense but under control.

5. NAIZA KHAN
Upon entering the ruinous Weather Observatory building (Manora Island, Karachi),
I found many old manuscripts scattered on the floor. There were hand-written
ledgers (dating back to 1916); detailed weather reports; tide tables that charted
the movements of the Indian Ocean; and nautical almanacs from British India and
post-Partition. The nautical almanacs from 1958 - 1966 contained advertisements of
communication equipment, as well as life rafts and navigational tools for the Pakistan
Navy and Karachi Port Trust.
These images were remarkable examples of a mid-1960s design aesthetic. They
seemed to veil the anxiety of cold war surveillance and spoke of a time before
globalisation.
The almanac pages were bookworm eaten, creating images of inverse islands in a
solid sea.
To this surface, I added fragments of speeches by General Ayub Khan (military dictator
and president of Pakistan, 1958 - 1969). The text excerpt evoked his rhetoric of
progress, open economy, and eventual war with India. I sensed the potential of such
varied elements drawn together within a single work.
The bookworm itself felt like the most active agent - creating its own metanarrative
through the pages. It was as though the period’s transactional visions and utopian
promises were being eaten away relentlessly.
Secrets from the Nautical Almanac 1966
2013
Chine-colle on Somerset paper
51 x 38cm
SECRETS FROM
THE NAUTICAL
ALMANAC 1966
OMER WASIM & SAIRA SHEIKH
Data uncovered shows remnants of immense human activity in
a place that is speculated to have been populated with man-
groves, supporting many unique ecosystems, housing thou-
sands of migratory birds, and other non-human beings. It seems
plausible to argue that this land was created by human beings
with the requisite agency to undertake a massive incursion into
the adjacent wetlands and seas. These agents furthered the
systems that crystallised and perpetuated existing modes of
hegemony and hierarchy, prefacing inevitable im-/ex-plosion of
the social fabric.
The material published here is a concise selection from this data
in our archives and excerpts from our findings. Just this particu-
lar section of the archives comprises data running into millions
of terabytes, and required extensive time to course through with
multidisciplinary stakeholders. All the major and minor matrices
of data discovered were tagged with serial numbers that have
been employed to cluster similar pieces of information. Accom-
panying each cluster is an excerpt from our findings, providing
cues to the natural and relational socio-economic structures,
and to how the human species—and its subsets—operated.
Using a diverse web of sophisticated technologies and algo-
rithms, we have managed to situate the recovered data in an
urban residential area owned, operated, and maintained by the
nation-state’s institution of defence—such overlaps, between
institutions of defence and capital, being by no means an anom-
aly in those times. Most of our data is from a coastline sector
and its adjoining precincts. This area was “reclaimed” to enable
expansion—territorial, economic, and hegemonic—dislocating
existing human and non-human ecosystems, in diametric oppo-
sition to nature, which illustrates how the human stance then, for
the most part, was superficially critical, if at all, and oblivious of
its complicity in perpetuating the precarious problematic of its
interactions with, and effects upon, the environment. The data
furthers the view that human beings had intrinsic existential
concerns about the transient nature of their lives, bodies, and
consciousness, which they attempted to transcend by perpet-
ually constructing and destroying systems of control. However,
it is ironic that these very systems, were not only always in flux,
but also made the entire gamut of the human species more
vulnerable in the face of dispossession and entropy, highlighting
the banal and absurd nature of their incursions, akin to the futile
efforts of Sisyphus.
Significant to note here is that those human societies, and their
residential locales, were stratified according to socio-eco-
nomic groups and sub-groups, the sector and precincts under
deliberation having been one of the most elite and seemingly
secure. These disparities are also apparent in the dichotomous
relationship between palaces and the structures that housed
the subspecies guarding the palaces, as seen in the site images
on view. Aspirations of grandeur and permanence are reflected
in the images, and while the fixedness of the palaces and related
systems may have helped the owners to keep their fears at bay
by maintaining a facade of safety and invincibility, this perma-
nence was a mere illusion since the processes of perpetual
and compulsive de-/con-struction irrevocably intensified their
intrinsic ephemerality—even if the subspecies were the ones
more profoundly and immediately affected. The visibly dispa-
rate, ubiquitous liminal structures existing outside the palaces
bear witness to not only this heightened and deeply embedded
sense of insecurity and vulnerability, but also to the tendency
for excess prevalent in that culture; acting as apparatuses of,
and monuments to, power and oppression—hovering between
presence and non-presence.
These palaces and liminal structures, with their myriads of
relationships, become representatives of a broader spectrum of
economic and exclusionary politics, hinting at the condition of
the nation-state and its varying institutions, where every effort
was made towards dissembling putrefaction as control. Our ar-
chives also indicate how these palace-systems, or micro-states,
operated within the larger entity—in spite of being territorially
minuscule, and in clear contention with their purlieus, they
validated the nation-state’s positionality, and vice versa. Taking
their cues from the nation-state, these micro-states systemat-
ically failed to provide for the subspecies directly dependant
upon them. Every micro-state fended for itself; fundamental
needs such as water, energy, security, and sustenance were
procured independently, since the nation-state had been unable
to realise its raison d’etre.
Other remains, dating from the same period in history, show that
the predominant dialectic of these human species was centered
around multiplicities, pluralities, and the death of the meta-nar-
rative. On the contrary, the analysis of our findings as illustrated
in this abstract, irrefutably argues that even though the philo-
sophical discourse may have attempted to break out of a unitary
dialectic, the human species still stayed within the confines of
polarities, and universal conditions. Conditions that were the
meta-narrative of that age.
1371. The dominant theory about this structure holds that it
was employed to contain, at any given point,a rather large
number of subspecies, whose main purpose was to guard and
protect the palace (seen on the left edge of the image), and
the palace-owners, at all times. It is also evident from the
relatively larger scale of the palace that these particular
palace-owners would have been even bigger in size, thereby be-
ing also more vulnerable, than the regular members of the human
species. However, the fact that this structure seems to have
been discarded and positioned away from the palace at the time
this image was made, indicates that the palace-owners may have
abandoned the palace, thus relinquishing the need to protect it
any further.
Some scholars also think that the initial purpose of this
structure was to transfer subspecies, or other material
vestiges, from one space to another.
1207. Cadmium yellow volume, which could have been an automotive appara-
tus, behind the structure used by the subspecies, probably to escort the
palace-owners and to fetch. Scholars have argued that the yellow volume
could have been exchanged for as much as 10,000 structures.
The structure is an anomaly from our archives—argued to have accommodat-
ed at least six subspecies, in close proximity.
See also, alizarin flora.
24° 48.326’ N
067° 03.409’ E
± 4m
24° 49.466’ N
067° 03.047’ E
± 6m
24. 8615° N
067.0099° E
SCROLL: PROJECTS ON PAPER SCROLL: PROJECTS ON PAPER
24. 8615° N, 067.0099° E
SECRETS FROM THE NAUTICAL ALMANAC 1966 OMER WASIM & SAIRA SHEIKH
NAIZA KHAN HOW WE MARK THE LAND
HOW WE MARK THE LAND

6. SCROLL: PROJECTS ON PAPER POSTER: TO PULL OUT & PUT UP
HUM (1999)
ROOHI AHMED HOW WE MARK THE LAND

7. 01.
ZARINA HASHMI
02.
DAVID ALESWORTH
03.
ROOHI AHMED
04.
ROOHI AHMED
05.
NAIZA KHAN
06.
NAIZA KHAN
Impression by the artist, 1999
Time, Language, Country, Dust,
Border, Distance, Andhera
Woodcut with Urdu Text, printed
in black on Kozo Paper
AAN Collection
The Chinese Periodic Baloch 1926,
2013
Textile Intervention, Projection
An Exercise in Persistence, 2016
Drawing with Carbon Paper on
Arches
In the Limelight, 2016
Needles on Wooden Panel
Body-bust, 2008
Galvanized Steel
Photographs by Arif Mahmood
Installation of Armour Work
I – IV, 2007
On the Frontline, 2007
Digital Print
WORKS
07.
SHAHANA RAJANI,
ZAHRA MALKANI &
ABEERA KAMRAN
08.
NAIZA KHAN
09.
NAIZA KHAN
10.
FAZAL RIZVI
11.
FAZAL RIZVI
12.
ROOHI AHMED
13.
SHAKILA HAIDER
Of Struggle, 2016
Web Installation
RE-aligned I, 2016
Screen Print on Fabriano
RE-aligned II, 2016
Screen Print on Fabriano
Fluid Frontiers, 2016
Publication
Drawing Lines I and II, 2016
Typewriter drawing series, ink on
paper
Diya Jalaye Rakhna
Karachi Series, 2000
Colour Pencils, inks, bitumen,
paper and Xerox transfer on gypsum
board
The Folded History, 2016
Mix Medium on Wasli
WORKS
01.
07.
10.
11.
09.
12. 13.
08.
03.
04.
02.
05.
06.
HOW WE MARK
THE LAND
A CATALOG OF WORKS
GANDHARA ART SPACE 2016