cts of terror - bomb blasts, suicide attacks, beheading of hostages and mass murder - trigger various responses. Perpetrators of these horrors have justifications based on their interpretations of religion, view of world politics and understanding of economic disparities. For victims, these are atrocious acts claiming innocent lives, for media these provide opportunities to increase their business/ ratings/ revenues.

For artists these are a moment to reflect upon and connect with the society, a subject that hardly enters their works, created not for commentary or reportage but for posterity. The unexpected and barbaric scheme of 9/11, altered the international balance of power. It also affected artists, especially those belonging to Muslim countries - Pakistan included - particularly the communities that suffered violence and terror on a regular basis. Many visual artists responded to what was unfolding in their surroundings, using multiple strategies, formats, techniques and genres.

After violence on that scale decreased (both on the ground and in the news coverage), some artists continued with the theme. Imran Qureshi is an example. Perhaps they follow writer Intezar Hussain’s example, who once said he was not the type of people who die instantly following a snake bite; he was the kind who suffer long before a slow death. Most creative people do not react immediately to a monumental occurrence. They absorb it, bit by bit, and its impact appears in their work. It is often not directly identifiable as the outcome of a particular happening.

The point is well illustrated in Imran Qureshi’s installations of blood-like paint splattered on the floor of several museums around the globe; on their rooftops, walls, corridors; and currently at the COMO Museum of Art, Lahore, as part of his solo exhibition, Home (February 25-June 30). A visitor is taken aback by the expanse of the bloodlike paint, which he manages to vary in its density and tint, thus combining the sensation of fresh and dried blood; along with its spread through drips, drops, streaks and stains.

A viewer is momentarily perplexed whether they are at a venue of Eid sacrifice; in a slaughterhouse after a butcher has completed his day’s tasks; at the site of a terrorist attack; or in an art museum. They finally realise that what they see at the ground floor of COMO could be an outcome of Qureshi’s performance. The process is not carried out in front of an audience. The public only sees it after it is done; like a scene of extremist violence. The connection with blood is common to all spaces on the ground, in addition to a pair of pieces on paper (Love me, Love me Not, 2024), both depicting a splash of blood in a circle; besides a miniature (Trespass, 2014) addressing the issue of violence by rendering an elevated view of an open space, with thin bands of blood on the floor. In a sense, the miniature becomes a section of the installation, modified as a timeless incident, recorded in (as) a historic art form.

Home, the title of the exhibition at the COMO Museum, entails multiple interpretations. It joins domestic violence, ritual offering and brutalities associated with Muslim fundamentalists. It also showcases other dimensions of this land, often neglected behind the large and more crowd-pulling narrative of violence.

The ambiguity of blood as evidence, vis-à-vis the date of the devastating occurrence, is significant, in that it helps in reading it not a response to a specific event, or a particular period, but a meditation on the human tendency, impulse and fascination with spilling of blood during animal hunt, as a game, pleasure, achievement. One confronts blood again, restrained this time in a series of 55 white tiles (Seeming Endless Path of Memory, 2024) in varying scales, hung with a distance from the wall, and containing sections of blood splattered shapes, embedded within the surface. Many of these are linked to one another. There are a few independent visuals as well. The blood-smeared walls and floor tempt one to interpret this carefully-executed body of work as portions of a freshly sacrificed animal.

Creating a link between the (much awaited) yearly ritual of sacrifice at home and the bloodbath at every scene of terrorist adventure, Qureshi draws our attention to the human tendency to become familiar with repeated trauma. One recalls that models of missiles were installed by the state on the roadsides and roundabouts to celebrate the capability to destroy enemy nations. After some years, the pedestrians were passing by these replicas without even noticing their capacity for bloodshed on an unimaginable scale. Next to the sequence of blood stained plaster sheets (Seeming Endless…), one finds a set of four tiny missiles, representing a narrative of blood emerging out of these horrendous contraptions, all coated in gold-leaf (a traditional material for miniature painting, still favoured in contemporary practice), suggesting the amount of money, expertise and time consumed in producing these lethal weapons.

Home, the title of the exhibition at the COMO Museum, entails multiple interpretations. It joins the domestic violence, ritual offering and brutalities associated with Muslim fundamentalists. It also showcases some other dimensions of this land, often neglected behind the large and more crowd-pulling narrative of violence. In his photographs (unedited prints of his iPhone snapshots), Qureshi captures uncanny visions – versions of reality. Routine existence is made extraordinary by the way he looks at his surroundings; for instance composed of yellow crates placed at the back of a truck; a man sitting behind balls of dough; large cooking pots arranged in a grid and being transported in an open van; goats trampling over colourful patchwork in an empty plot. One can also mention an extremely unusual video projection (Still/ Moving, 2019) in the same league. The recording of the back of a vehicle, comprising the elementary shape of Ka’ba in glass work, offers a perpetual sequence of intersecting views, of other vehicles and the environment, reflected in mirror pieces. The artist’s choice of this frame has turned the work mysterious, complex and enjoyable.

Illustrating how against all odds, difficulties and dangers, human beings find a means to continue their struggle for survival and joy, a point made in Qureshi’s site-specific installation/ project (…and Then Came Spring, 2024) on the rooftop of the museum. The entire open space, steps included, is filled with modified versions of charpoys. Constructed in metal pipes and nylon rope, these charpoys have replaced the conventional models fabricated in wood and strings weaved with natural substance. The modern charpoy, besides altering that material, has incorporated a variety of patterns in basic colours.

Imran Qureshi’s interactive installation, consists of this purpose-built piece of furniture, inviting an onlooker to become a participant, by removing his/ her footwear, walk and sit on these low charpoys (covering the entire roof), talk and sip tea with friends, is as related to violence as linked to the present history of miniature painting. Crouching on this woven surface, while holding tea and conversing with others, the bloody floors and walls of the ground level are as far removed and hidden from our sight, as the annals of violence are faded in our minds. This installation can also be approached as a metaphor for the historic miniature painting’s impressive metamorphosis into a contemporary practice.

The writer is an art critic based in Lahore.