hile it is sometimes seen as a collective responsibility, religion is mostly one’s personal matter. Even when one is worshipping at a church or in a mosque or is joined by a large number of devotees in a temple, the act of praying is one person’s direct, private and intimate dialogue with the Creator.

One still hears about the followers of one faith being one group despite their differences of languages, ethnicities, customs and politics. This concept of uniformity has been repeatedly challenged over centuries. This is as true of medieval wars between Christian principalities across Europe, battles among ancient Hindu kingdoms, the clash at Karbala, the wars between Iran and Iraq and the skirmishes between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Religion is not the only or the most effective factor to unite people. Other such factors include nationhood, economic interests, a shared language, discovery of knowledge and common culture. In fact, religion is primarily translated into various cultures. Holy books are read with text interpreted in the languages of their followers. Mosques built in Xinjiang, Malaysia, Egypt, Mali and North India have dissimilar architectural features. In Christianity, the images of Christ and Virgin Mary vary depending upon the region where they are painted or sculpted. Hence there is a black Messiah on the cross and a dark Madonna painted in Ethiopia, but the same entities are represented as blonde figures in Europe and North America. Likewise, the features of Buddha were carved according to the ethnicity of the worshippers. Thus, there is no singular/ standard resemblance in statues made in Afghanistan, Taxila, South India, China, Bhutan, Japan and Cambodia.

In a sense, the cultural manifestation of faith is more important for a community. Muslims originating from different regions seek benediction from Allah in their native tongues. Probably, there is a constant process of conversation (or conversion) when a universal faith is meets with a vernacular culture. The Conversations exhibition at O Art Space, Lahore, (March15- April 8) addresses the way systems of beliefs are transmuted and transcribed in the vocabulary of visual arts.

The group show includes 12 Muslim artists beside a Christian and a Chinese one. Apart from their religious orientations the participants can be segregated into two categories: artists who have been engaged with the theme of religious representation for some years, and those who have explored this as a new subject, or twisted their usual pictorial motifs and techniques.

During Gen Zia-ul Haq’s dictatorship, many artists had shifted to (Islamic) calligraphy as the basis/ justification of their art making – some to seek the state’s approval and patronage. To a certain extent, one regularly sees exhibitions around calligraphy and Islamic themes organised during the holy month of Ramazan (like the bulging count of devotees rushing to mosques these days). However, the exhibition at the O Art Space also deals with spirituality and religion. A number of artists have interpreted the theme through a set of imagery that connects to it remotely, or barely.

For instance, Mudassar Manzoor’s man holding a flower near his nose – with swirling lines of aroma, or Sana Arjumand’s figures clutching exotic birds to their chests fail to establish a link either with religion or spirituality. Instead these appear to be forced attempts to tackle the exhibition brief.

The exhibition brief/ premise aims “to showcase the profound connection between art and religious belief, where creativity becomes a powerful vessel, highlighting the enduring conversation that artists have engaged in throughout history.” Each participant has been able to bring a “unique perspective.”

The display shows how followers of one religion find diverse elements and transform them in their work, or focus on a different faith to include in their creative inquiry. Zhao Yingming, for instance, has drawn charcoal sketches of an individual supporting a beard and of a girl in dupatta, alluding to the Muslim belief and conventions. RM Naeem has explored a theme outside of his faith by inserting the image of a crucified Christ in his composition that looks like a drawing with streaks of dark substance placed above the meticulously rendered body of a doll like infant.

One can describe the subject of Naeem’s Blessed, beyond his belief, but art students of various religions are familiar with the Christian imagery through its recurrence in art. Actually, art, a cultural product, has the capacity to be more inclusive than a religious congregation/ place of worship, as observed in Ibadat Khana III by Naveed Sadiq, a Christian artist who has created the drawing of a mosque after Ibadat Khana, the Mughal miniature painting (ca 1590-95) which had a Persian inscription that refers to Rodolfo, one of the Christian intellectuals. (Rodolfo Acquaviva was a late Sixteenth Century Italian Jesuit missionary and priest in India who served the court of Akbar the Great). Sadiq was trained in miniature painting (a genre not limited to any sect in terms of its themes and visuals, or its patrons and painters). He hails from the latest generation of miniature artists.

If the exhibition encompasses art pieces with common and predictable religious connections, like the manipulation of Arabic/ Persian script in mixed media work by Ghulam Muhammad, Hussain Jamil and Shiblee Muneer, or adding a girl with a veil on her head (Sadaf Naeem’s Cosmos I&II), it also represents artists who have been investigating the presence and power of religion in one’s life and surroundings, employing cultural artefacts and symbols. For several years, Mughees Riaz has been focusing on the aspect of religion through hijab and beards. In the current show one comes across a woman in a dark cloak and head dress, with a slit for her eyes.

Waseem Ahmed has appropriated a historic reference (Ikarios plays host to Dionysus, Late 1^st Century BCE) to construct a multi-fold pictorial structure/ atmosphere. In Ahmed’s In the Name of Faith, one finds a muscular man clad in a flowing fabric and accompanied by a youth daubed in dark. The features and the attire of the dominating character and the introduction of faded lines of Arabic script as the remains of some floating clouds bring forth a sense of merger between cultures and convictions. The amalgamation of faiths and history in the form of cultural practices is evident in Ali Azamt’s paintings, too. One of those depicts a girl taking selfie. The other canvas has a person with grey hair on his head and face talking to a younger woman in green garments. The meaning of its title Conversation I, is enhanced by inserting the sign of pause, so the work seems on the periphery of a still image and video.

An added conversation can be discerned in both these paintings: between contemporary living and practices of the past, manifested in background buildings, ritualistic artifacts and mythological entities. Muhammad Zeeshan is also examining the Shia symbols in his art; the silhouettes and details of his Zuljanah, the mount of Imam Hussain (with whom Allah was pleased) in the Battle of Karbala, reminds the viewers how this visual entity is still relevant and revered at the Muharram mourning processions.

Meher Afroz is probably the one artist from the exhibition for whom religious imagery is not an art form, but a part of life. She incorporates Shia visuals, such as the open palm (signifying five pure/ holy personnel) and other motifs from tazias joined on her surfaces. Afroz’s work, Asrar-i-Zindigi I&II (Secrets of life), reveal her attachment to the faith and to its pictorial products on a deeper, cultural and personal level, rather than an exotic material/ source.

The exhibition, more than religion and spiritually, is a mark of diversity in our artistic productions and positions. Diversity is often a term equated with post-modernism, a Western construct of the late Twentieth Century, about accepting multiple and contradictory views and practices. However, the concept is hardly new in Muslim societies, in which a single faith has been recognised as having informed no less than 72 sects.

The writer is an art critic, curator and a professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design, at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore