Dr Furqan Ahmed’s fascination with collecting moments of the past, our shared, private, and public moments is unique and exciting. His vast body of collection includes artworks, printed words, historic photographs, a material to reconstruct the memory archive is an effort to remind, and record, and preserve the identity of a nation, which is spreading it like discarded leaves of autumn trees, and fleeting butterflies from a climatic crisis.
The Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov is known for his habit of gathering butterflies. A passion that may not have any apparent link to his work as an author. People of different ages, regions, professions have built habits of collecting; probably with one of the most common and mundane pastimes of accumulating coins and postal stamps. Some even like to own bottle caps, disused dress buttons, train tickets, boarding cards, etc.
Orhan Pamuk in his novel The Museum of Innocence sketches a character who obsessively picks tiny and insignificant articles touched by his beloved’s fingers: cigarette butts, earbuds, tooth picks, hair pins, thrown away tissue papers, discarded pens, disused pencils, leftover lipsticks, a broken down comb, dumped paper bags – and so forth.
For the protagonist of Turkish fiction, the connection with the human being is as important as the act of physically documenting trinkets belonging to time, location. A resume of memory. Initially tied to a person, later to a period, place, taste, trend, trade, industry. Dr Furqan Ahmed, has been collecting a range of articles, without a direct connection to his profession as a medical practitioner.
It is pure vision, emotion, and fascination that initiates collecting, further evolved into a serious business. In the beginning Ahmed started to buy video art from Pakistan. A strange and unheard custom of spending someone’s hard earned money, on such a momentary, transient, and ephemeral format; that even several local galleries are still reluctant to display, let alone art collectors prepare to own.
Soon after, or maybe simultaneously, he focused on the pottery produced by artists. Another marginalized form of expression, normally considered merely a craft, thus not priced equal to other, more established genres, such as paintings, sculptures, drawings, miniature paintings, and calligraphies. A reason for transforming Salahuddin Mian, the best exponent of this art form, into an obscure individual in the mainstream narrative of Pakistani art.
Usually private collectors, huge or humble, along with their favourite pieces acquire a tendency to conceal their possessions from the public eye; only to be accessed by a select few – including immediate family, close friends, useful relatives, business partners. Even some of them refuse to lend works from their cellars for landmark exhibitions. These well-kept secrets are bought but remain hidden from the generations to come. The patronage which immediately benefits an artist, but with the passage of time turns his creations invisible.
Dr Furqan Ahmed is a different collector in that sense. He not only buys works of all sorts, but has published books on art, culture, and society, inviting a range of critics, academics, historians to contribute to these valuable volumes. This act of dissemination of knowledge extends into sharing some of his prime possessions on social media. One such is the regular posting of Urdu literary magazines’ covers, and title pages of books and journals created by artists.
Recently a large-scale display based on his collection has opened for public. This project offers unique perspectives into the city of Karachi and views contemporary art as an expanded field and also as an investigative tool. Maps, mapping , and map making are the central themes of the project. It also includes a 200 – page book ( with essays by Marvi Mazhar and Zarmeene Shah; designed by Kiran Ahmad ) and an exhibition spread over three spaces (Canvas Gallery, Koel Gallery, and IVSAA Gallery). It seeks to engage with the city using contemporary art and archival material ( documents, maps, advertisements, photographs, books ). A body of materials that serves to foreground multiple narratives about Karachi – how it once was, how it is now and how it might yet become – including conversations about minorities, Manora, the securitization of the city, climate change, and more.
A significant, and magnificent step that includes expensive artworks to priceless issues of local magazines; and reveals the intent and attention of Dr Furqan Ahmed Collection. To archive the social and cultural scenario of a people that has developed an epidemic of collective amnesia. Therefore it is logical that a practicing doctor has detected the malaise of mass spread forgetfulness of this nation, and he, a single and dedicated individual is healing/helping it by using the tools of a chronicler – applying with clinical precision and care.