KB24 opens at Frere Hall

The Karachi Biennale 2024, themed “Rizq | Risk,” explores food security, sustainability, and heritage across five diverse venues

The fourth iteration of the Karachi Biennale, KB24 is in full swing, with curator Waheeda Baloch at the helm. With the interesting title “Rizq | Risk”, the curatorial premise offers fertile grounds for pertinent conversations on the issues of food security, environmental sustainability, social justice and cultural heritage, with its diverse implications addressed across the 5 venues of the biennale.

The title itself suggests a paradox between food security and environmental sustainability, touching upon the ways in which the former is affected by globalization and cultural imperialism. “Through a diverse range of artistic practices and perspectives, the vision of KB24 will provide the audience with a chance to delve into the complex web of factors that are influencing the global food systems, from the impact of colonialism and globalization to the effects of climate change and consequences of carbon emissions,” says the curatorial statement.

Especially relevant in this context becomes of culinary heritage of indigenous communities, the preservation and archiving of lost narratives of food cultures and traditions which may be in danger of succumbing to shifts and erasures as a consequence of the colonial experience and neo-Imperialism in the guise of globalization. This also covers the impact on indigenous communities which rely on food supply for their own livelihood and survival.

This aspect of the thematic is brought into particular focus with the sub-thematic of the venue Frere Hall, “Our Land, Our Stories”, which uses the architectural context of the British colonial building to spark conversations about post-coloniality and its relation to food security and ecology from an indigenous lens. The venue showcases the works of 8 artists, Ayesha Jatoi, Tino Sehgal, Naiza Khan, Mehreen Zuberi, Luis Carlos Tovar, Khushboo, Lina Persson and a piece by a collective of five artists and social activists, Fatima Majeed, Fazal Rizvi, Ahmer Naqvi, Luluwa Lokhandwala and Shabbir Mohammed. The artists act as cultural researchers and activists, instigating debate on ecological shifts, global politics and power structures that shape food systems, and their trickling impacts on consumption habits and local communities.

The first work the audience encounters when entering the space is Ayesha Jatoi’s installation “Flesh and Blood”. Beginning at the top of the staircase and continuing along the railing in the corridor outside the main hall, it comprises steel plates alternating between found rubble and blood hued liquid, a graphic depiction of the carnage of the ongoing genocide. The metal plates create a poignant statement about the ways in which we consume the violence being experienced by others through our screens as content. Here the curator presents the devastating forms in which colonialism has endured in our contemporary world, not as a remnant of the past but as a part of our current reality.

Rhythmic voices beckon the viewer into the main hall, which stands empty and dark with only 3 lone performers seated in the center of the floor. One chants haunting repetitive tunes in acapella vocals that reverberate in echoes through the cavernous space, while the other two create bodily movements inspired from Sufi spiritual and classical dance forms of Sindh. In this live art work by Tino Sehgal, the human body becomes an instrument and creates a ‘constructed situation’ in a two-week long performance which is not recorded nor replicated; a one of a kind, fleeting experience for the audience.

The fusion of the modern music (the performer singing “Say My Name” by Dentiny’s Child at one point”) and traditional dance forms, set against the colonial architecture, with both representing a different form of cultural imperialism separated by time, creates an interesting juxtaposition.

Also exploring spiritual aspects of ‘rizq’ is Mahreen Zuberi’s work “In Proportions”, which emerges from a four-month-long studio research project exploring the idea of food as divine offering as part of mazaar culture. Inspired by a piece of paper she found at the mazaar of Abdullah Shah Ghazi which prescribed the a specific number of Besan ke Ladoo to be offered every Thursday, the artist decided to undertake the ritual of making these offerings at the shrine as a first hand experience.

The resulting work explores the use of food in rituals, tradition and superstition, and its status as a divine blessing in South Asian culture. This can be seen in the videos of the artist making the ladoo and writing the intricate number of ladoos required for the ritual offering. This is set against the more tangible realities of food as sustenance by deconstructing the spiritual offering into its constituent parts, besan flour and sugar, which ironically sits on the divine golden ratio of 3:1. The spiritual and the secular intertwine seamlessly in this installation which tries to reconcile the spiritual space of the mazaar and the secular artistic space, bringing the geometric format of the miniature manuscript into physical form.

Talking about bodies of water, ecology, displacement, and cultural erasure are the works by Naiza Khan, Khushboo, Luis Carlos Tovar and a collective research project by Fatima Majeed, Fazal Rizvi, Ahmer Naqvi, Luluwa Lokhandwala and Shabbir Mohammed. Naiza Khan presents 3 paintings, “The Streets are Rising” (2013), Kurrachee, Past, Present and Future (2012-13), Spill (2016), which are a layering of contesting landscapes and times, borne out of a practice of walking urban spaces and archival research to speak about ecological as well as socio political concerns of land contestation and borders. However, with a name like Naiza Khan and considering the nature of her practice, it seems a bit of a missed opportunity to not have a large-scale commissioned research project by her instead of old paintings that fit the theme.

Luis Carlos Tovar presents side profile portraits of residents from four Colombian artisanal fishing communities affected by the local mining conflict. These piezography process photographs on Bright White Hahnemuhle paper are attached to the window grills of the building where rendered translucent by the bright sunlight they eerily fly about with every gust of wind like ghosts. This is accompanied by a video installation where the same portraits stand like flags planted at the beach looking out to sea.

“The Table – Mahigeer Aur Hum” has a similar premise in the local context, where a group of multidisciplinary practitioners including artists, writers, and designers work with social activist Fatima Majeed from the Ibrahim Hyderi Mahigeer community which has been facing displacement and loss of livelihood due to changing ecologies and global economies. The Table is a culmination of an extensive research project, presenting photographs, publications, videos and music which seek to preserve and celebrate the traditions, rituals, crafts and way of life of the fishing community. In a performance by the residents of the community, they reclaim the land from which they were displaced in the name of progress, bringing their indigenous coastal culture and traditions to the fore through rituals, song and dance, and fishing crafts.

The 45 minute documentary by documentary filmmaker from Gilgit-Baltistan, Khushboo, again looks at similar issues of climate change, shifting ecologies and its impact on the indigenous communities whose livelihood is tied to the waterbodies they live near. In this case it is the melting glaciers of Gilgit-Baltistan, which is explored through the life of Muhammad Ali, a resident of Morko Valley in Gilgit Baltistan. The rising temperatures in the area is causing a glacial melt, causing a food and employment crisis due to disruptions in irrigation channels.

It is a testament to the strength of the curatorial vision that the artworks chosen to reside at this venue do not just stand in isolation but are in a pertinent dialogue with the space and the historical context it carries. This becomes as important aspect of the work without which they might lose some of the nuance that make them truly stand out. Not only do the works then become relevant to our present situation, but are also become inexplicably tethered to our past as an undeniable truth and burden that must be resolved in order for us to pave the way forward.