First Death Anniversary: Artists paint Qandeel Baloch’s mural to honour her memory

The evening of last year’s July 16 saw a group of young men and women gather outside the historic Frere Hall to express solidarity and outrage over social media icon Qandeel Baloch’s murder, committed by her brother to ‘save his family’s honour’.

A year later, another group with a similar take headed towards Pakistan Chowk with their paints and brushes to paint Qandeel’s mural to honour her memory. Scrapping off one layer after the other, the group of young men and women started painting the wall with different designs, different shades of triangles representing grass and flowers.

Helmed by Pakistan Chowk Initiative, Girls At Dhabas (GAD) and Fearless Collective, the mural of the slain icon was finally up against the wall in two hours after the folks finally got hold of a ladder.

“The idea of the mural is that this happened! And that this woman existed and that we won’t be forgetting her. Not every act needs to be of a magnitude that would transform the society overnight,” said Sadia Khatri of GAD.

Mindful of the fact that the mural might get ripped off, the main idea, Sadia said was to keep Qandeel’s memory and spirit alive. Highlighting the icon’s three main features, the mural was designed as such that brought to light Qandeel’s playfulness, her positivity and brought together all those who were thoughtful towards her.

However, the bystanders appeared to be quizzical. While some took hold of the brushes to paint the designs they wanted to, some thought they should govern the kind of art that should be painted across walls.

Representing Pak Chowk Initiative, student Asad Aly, felt that Qandeel was important because she refused to bow down before patriarchy. “For me Qandeel was someone who just couldn’t care less about how societal norms were supposed to dictate her life. What Qandeel used to do was nothing new, rather women have been doing that for ages now, except it’s seldom on their own terms and is often to placate male ego. Qandeel challenged that very male ego, and she lost her life owing to that,” he said.

“The reason I wanted to paint her mural was because I don’t want her to become just another fragment of our short-lived memories,” Aly added.

Speaking about why paints were used instead of stencils, Nida Mushtaq of Fearless Collective said that the element of time is key here: “This could have been done as graffiti, or through a stencil which is a matter of two minutes. But we paint on the streets, spend time, take permissions for walls because we want to engage people, understand and learn as to what it is that bothers us about women in public, metaphorically, digitally or literally.

Painting Qandeel on the street is an act of acceptance first of all. Fearless Collective works to replace fear with love.” Aly also said that the Pak Chowk Initiative would be expanding soon with more interventions to mobilise artists from the locality.

“The whole conversation about art for a long time now has been policed by the liberal elite. We want to restore not just art but the conversations that stem from it, involving the artists,” he said. With the a golden dupatta gleaming with ‘Jiye Qandeel’, the mural is high on the wall as an ode to a woman who fell victim to patriarchal norms like countless others in the country.