Tracing Horizons

Artist residency Horizon is Home explores the intersection of art, nature, and community through the lens of Chitral’s diverse landscapes and cultures.

Hito Steyerl in her book, The Wretched of the Screen writes about the horizon. “Our traditional sense of orientation – and, with it, modern concepts of time and space – are based on a stable line: the horizon line. Its stability hinges on the stability of an observer, who is thought to be located on a ground of sorts, a shoreline, a boat – a ground that can be imagined as stable, even if it is not. The horizon line was an extremely important element in navigation. It defined the limits of communication and understanding. Beyond the horizon, there was only muteness and silence. Within it, things could be made visible. But it could also be used for determining one’s location and relation to one’s surroundings, destinations, or ambitions.”

The currently held artist residency Horizon is Home, offers multiple horizons, from the high altitudes of Hindu Kush mountains in Chitral, to intimate crevices of a creative individual’s solitude. Organized by the Articulate Studios the residency started with investigating the environment of a region far from big metropolises, such as Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. Not only the place, but the setting also encouraged city dwellers to abandon the comfort of the usual routine. The shift in the ways of living, also influenced the ways of thinking, observing and approaching nature. Nature which includes not only huge and mute mountains, glistening peaks, narrow and winding paths, wooden and stone abodes – and the duration of the day from dawn to dusk. Interactions with communities, studying cultures, exploring natural resources, and accepting parallel views and means of survival, expanded not only the vision of the participating artists but their practices too.

The residency comprises creative practitioners who paint, work in new media, do photography, write, and conduct research, sometimes a blend of the practice of one person. The residency envisages a multiplicity of responses – expected to culminate during the second phase at the Articulate Studios location in Lahore.

Normally, all artists’ residencies are occasions to expect the unseen and accept the unprepared outcomes. Sometimes during its period, but often afterward. In both cases, the residencies provide a unique opportunity for an artist to step out of the solitude of his/her studio, room, workplace, to interact with other creative personalities, absorb influences, assimilate changes, attempt new modes of expressions – all outcomes of the exchange with those who were alien, strangers and unfamiliar before the commencement of residency; which facilitates discussions, debates, collaboration, even disagreements.

At the Articulate Studios Residency, Horizon is Home, the six participants stayed in one place, some sharing the same room; and having breakfast, food, and coffee together lent to discover aspects of a contemporary’s practice, life, background, previously unheard, unexpected. The interaction with students at a local school also helped to review concepts of community outreach, preservation of the environment, and archiving of history. Realizing that history is not contained in the texts, letters, and photographs of ruling families, but in stones, customs, foods, dresses, and attitudes of common inhabitants of a region.

A creative person – in the words of Ijaz ul Hassan, is a gleaner, who picks, collects and saves what is found randomly, anticipating that it will be of some usage, or become part of a later, more planned work. I witnessed that all participants of the residency either separately or as a group were busy exploring extraordinary dimensions of a physical location, a living culture, and a system of survival. A momentary glimpse, a causal word, a piece of jewelry, a ride on a crowded vehicle, a workshop with the eager boys and girls of a neighbouring school, visits to some remote village, journey to Kailash Valley; one presumes will emerge in the works – images, words, objects – materialized and displayed in Lahore.

It is often noticed that when a human being visits another place, he/she takes something from home (ideas, tools, clothes, toiletries, reading material, gadgets, presumptions, prejudices); but on returning some of these are either disposed of, left, or lost, and in their place something else is added into the artist’s physical and psychological possession, luggage.

Participants of Horizon is Home, during their sojourn in Chitral documented the place, studied indigenous habitations, and tasted the scent of mountain air, thus enriching a chunk of their lives, that will always stay with them (whether in their productions and practices, or some other manifestations), after they take their independent and separate paths, choices, and preferences.

Art is a means of bringing people together, creating a conversation among strangers, and introducing the culture of people who are – often misrepresented and misjudged. The Articulate Studios Residency, Horizon is Home, initiated and organized by Eisha Liaqat and Ahsan Javaid, made this feat possible – as well as enjoyable.