The Peruvian Nobel laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa writes, “Literature does not describe countries: it invents them.” Likewise, biennales or triennials do not belong to one city or a country; they create their own territories. The Venice Biennale is not about the beauty of Venice city, nor is Kochi limited to the state of Kerala. These venues are like post offices, where letters, parcels, and packages arrive from all over the world.
Thankfully, the Lahore Biennale is not a landlocked affair either. With its three editions to date, it has provided an exciting, unique, and unparalleled experience to the inhabitants of Lahore. A metropolis that continues to remain an important stopover between Central Asia and Delhi since the beginning of the Sultanate Period in the Subcontinent. Therefore, a perfect place to host a biennale – an event that tries to dismantle boundaries which divide human beings, cultures, technologies, belief systems, and political positions.
Lahore prides on its history that extends to thousands of years, arguably “it was founded about 4,000 years ago by Loh, son of Rama, the hero of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana”, and “the oldest authentic document about Lahore was written anonymously in 982 and is called Hudud-i-Alam”. Due to its three editions of Lahore Biennale, the city has emerged as a leading centre of art on the world map. This is not only because the curator of the 2nd Edition, Hoor Al Qasimi, and the curator of the 3rd Edition, John Tain, invited artists from more than 50 countries, but also because both, especially Al Qasimi, interpreted the city as a venue where many worlds meet, converse, and converge.
Due to the vision, support, and enthusiasm of Qudsia Rahim and the entire LBF team, the works produced in far-off lands, when installed in different locations, infused new meanings into art pieces and altered the familiar sites of Lahore. Al Qasimi brought what was possible ‘Between the Sun and the Moon’. Or if we translate the theme of LB 02 further, between East and West. Or North and South. Or here and there. On visiting all 13 sites, the significance of this major art event became obvious, since a biennale of international standards was in reach of an ordinary onlooker, primarily because the curator displayed works which are normally seen in museums around the world.
Several motifs visible at the LB02, including political segregation, gender inequality, identity issues, and state of dislocation, somehow appeared to converge and correspond, leading to multiple excursions. An impossibility for a majority of people and artists from countries/regions known for their narrow perception and practice of freedoms: political, religious, ethnic, or artistic. Many artists from South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa, no matter in what part of the planet they live and work, imbibe resistance and critique of power — of state, public, orthodoxy — in their work. Their art, in essence, seems closer to literature, as described by Northrop Frye: “The kind of problem that literature raises is not the kind that you ever ‘solve’.”
Artists keep on pushing boundaries of all sorts — formal, political, societal, and religious. LBF provides that platform, with a twist of concept in each of its editions. Witnessed in the 3rd edition, ‘Of Mountains and Seas’, curated by John Tain. Spread to various locations of Lahore, from the Mughal fort and garden, anthropological museum, train station, art galleries, historic halls, colonial buildings, and roadsides, the 3rd Edition drew attention towards the ecological crisis and carbon footprints. Qudsia Rahim, the Executive Director of Lahore Biennale Foundation, shared that “John Tain….. is building on new and old knowledge-based systems, creating spaces for experimentation, collaboration, and critical thinking in hopes of creating agency for the Pakistani arts and cultural practitioners within the larger arts community and as equal partners in building a community of care that focuses on the relationship between humans and nature for a sustained future.”
The artists and collectives invited and selected in the 3rd edition demonstrated their focus on the scarcity of water, increasing production of plastic in every sphere of life, the threatening air quality, alarming level of melted glaciers, uncontrollable chopping of trees; concerns which uncannily turned prophetic during the unprecedented floods in major parts of Pakistan this summer.
Indicating that no matter, art or artists if appear removed from the public, they are more synchronized with reality, a reality that often ends painfully when it unfolds in the public domain.