rchiving mostly involves objects that are not used on a regular basis but hold emotional or historical significance that saves them from getting repudiated. We see at our homes, antique pieces or items of old but expensive crockery of a grandparent, sitting proudly on dusty shelves. These items are too sacred to be touched by the unruly children in the house as they would be unaware of their historical fragility. The funny thing about these aged cabinets, bookshelves and desks is that they still remain the most reliable modes for archiving memorabilia in the age of magnetic tapes and cloud storage. These repositories juxtapose the context of stored objects with the place in which they are being held.

Such was an example of archived memories put up in a unique display at Zahoor-ul Akhlaq Gallery, National College of Arts, Lahore, recently. The show was curated by Ghazala Raees who had been a curator-in-residency at Vasl Artist Association, in collaboration with the British Council and Gasworks. Her research-based project had culminated in an exhibition of work by nine artists from across the country.

Through innovative practices in co-design research approaches, Creation in Translation [Case Study 01] underscores various viewpoints on the critical processes that are involved in archiving the past while rewriting history in one’s own interpretation. The exhibition was premised on an exchange of text regarding a memory of a participant and its visual representation by a fellow participant. While eight memories were shared in text, eight visuals were created to translate the anonymously written word. These ‘materialised’ elucidations were meticulously categorised by the curator in the archiving bodies provided in the space of the display.

The show was previously glimpsed at the Theosophical Society Library, Jamshed School, in Karachi. At both the shows, the artworks were contained within bookshelves and work desks that were already present at these locations.

Nairah Sharjeal’s work, held in a classical glass and a wooden cabinet, was a rendition of the text provided by her fellow participant, Ariba Akhlaq. The artist used glass jars to preserve the totems of memories described in the text. A plaster cast of an old-fashioned perforated window which held significance in the writer’s memory was archived in a specimen jar along with various objects connoting the experience in a lived space.

While Ariba Akhlaq showcased wedding photographs that seemed to be from the 1970s, given their low saturated appearance, those were alluded to be pasted on top of the dark pages of an old memory book that most Pakistanis have inherited from their grandmothers. The whole installation was accompanied by the presence of a large metal storage box that was given as an essential asset to brides in their dowry, covered with a white crocheted tablecloth. Sitting on top of the metal box was the opened wedding album with a quaint makeup box filled with more photos and a silver kohl container.

Ariba Akhlaq showcased wedding photographs that seemed to be from the 1970s, given their low saturated appearance, ‘alluded’ to be pasted on top of the dark pages of an old memory book that most Pakistanis have inherited from their grandmothers.

This picturesque adoration of the bygone era was drawn upon the prompt provided by Zahra Asim who envisioned similar themes of nostalgia and the remains of the past that have lingered in our contemporaneous society from the text provided by Sohail Zuberi. The textual and visual modes both depicted the post-colonial identity of the local cityscape of Karachi. The text refers to the streets on which an ordinary civilian walks, and is named after an Englishman who would’ve turned in his grave if he ever saw the current security measures and geographical interventions, taken by the local authorities.

Sohail Zuberi colligated images of dehydrated hands of old people with convoluted branches of trees indicating the process of nourishment in nature. Just as an offspring nurtures itself from the parent, young saps would siphon nutrients from the roots of older trees laid underground, leaving them bone dry.

Further, Anushka Rustomji depicted the process of death in imperceptible degrees. She too, like Zuberi, took her inspiration not from the idea of a tree but from its description provided by Nisha Hassan and her real-life encounter with a Gulmohur tree, which enjoyed its youth spewing scarlet flowers and eventually succumbing to death and disease.

Nisha Hassan incorporated anatomical drawings, specimens of plaster casts, and seashells in petri dishes and dictionaries to delineate themes of heartache and feminine sentiments involved in love that could both rejuvenate and devastate. Ayaz Jokhio, who provided text for the former, rendered small sculptures deploying dry clay and paint to illustrate the tidal markings on the sand at sea shores. His work accompanied by the text provided by Haider Ali Naqvi, commented on the ultimate demise of infinitesimal man-made structures up against the power of an ocean.

Naqvi resorted to sign language with a cheat sheet provided within the display and invited the viewer to decode the text that he had received. Upon deciphering the hand gestures into their corresponding alphabets, one would realise the artist’s intention to communicate through visual-manual modality as he warns the viewer of locking eyes with a wild beast in the jungle.

In addition to the artworks made through the exchange of prompts, the exhibition included Sophia Balaghamwala’s animation, titled Whereabouts Unknown/ Ata Pata Maloom. The participants and the curatorial premise introduced a distinctive manner to archive memories through visual interventions and explored the transition of the past into history.

The writer is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Lahore