An Indian artist on staging a public art project across the Indo-Pakistan border

I sparked a bawling conversation with an creative person from Pakistan Postcards from habitation: My photography and writing project documents 47 artists from both India and Pakistan, all of whom share a connection to the Partition of India in 1947.

Built-in to parents from pre-partition India, my childhood memories are decorated with stories from my parents' homes in Quetta and Sargodha, both at present in modernistic-day Pakistan. At present in their 90s, my parents still miss the "abode" they fled overnight, leaving everything they had and the deep friendships shared across generations, never to return. These stories were fertile soil on which the seeds of the sectionalisation project would exist planted.

Manisha Jeera Paswani's photo. Courtesy of the artist

Getting visas is not easy on both sides of the border, simply I have been fortunate enough to visit Islamic republic of pakistan several times in the past seven years. I traveled in that location initially for another photography projection, which allowed me to spend many hours in the many Pakistani artists' studios, talking to them over cups of tea, and photographing them every bit we talked.

During these visits I kept hearing stories well-nigh Taksim. But this time they were from the other side of the border. Only information technology turned out that the feelings–feelings of deep hurting, nostalgia, longing, and honey for what in one case was dwelling–were as prevalent on their side as I was. Furthermore, I realized that my subjects were recovering by telling me these stories. The repetition of these tales seems to permanently calm the displaced. Each novel gave them a silent hope that their memories might not be cached forever in the sands of fourth dimension. These stories continued to resonate in me until I felt compelled to record them, so that they could alive outside their narrator.

The project consists of 47 postcards – a advisedly chosen number – featuring an artist I photographed in their studios. On the back of the card is the memory of their lost "homeland".

*Postcards from home* It was shown at the inaugural Lahore Biennale in 2017. Photograph: Manisha Jeera Paswani

I was invited to present the project at the inaugural Lahore Biennale 2017, where I shed tears with strangers telling their stories of partition. Information technology was probably the beginning public art projection on division by an Indian, shown in Pakistan. Later that year, Salima and Munizah Hashmi, daughters of the great poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who calls them India and Pakistan, invited me to perform at the Faiz Festival in Lahore. Countless spectators came during each of the four days during this cross-border cultural exchange. And my collection of stories from both sides of the frontier continued to grow as I exhibited the projection at various venues, including colleges.

Postcard with a picture and words of the artist Saba Iqbal. Courtesy of Manisha Jeera Paswani

It shortly became clear to me that the project was also speaking to those who had not witnessed partition but had experienced personal loss and longing, maybe leaving their state of war-torn homes in search of safer lands or in need of a amend life. Incubation of my project by a wider audience has started organically wherever it is shown, whether at the Kochi Biennale in Kerala in 2018 or at the Bharat Art Fair 2019 where it has been shown as a major public art project. Information technology is currently on brandish at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, until March 2023.

I am a firm believer in the "healing power of art". The healing process requires time, participation and listening, which our nations and their people alike have not washed. Those who witnessed the sectionalization are still deeply bruised and in pain. We, the relatives of the hapless victims of 1947, likewise carry a collective grief that continues. Sometimes I inquire myself if my children and my children are going to grieve the mode we grieve, for this generation. I have no answers, only prayers that they may inherit a beautiful, simple and peaceful earth, a world that still lives on in the memories of our parents.

• Manisha Jeera Baswani is a multidisciplinary artist based in New Delhi. Her work focuses on forging connections beyond Asian cultural traditions, including painting, photography, sculpture, and poetic writing.

Source: https://getaboutcolumbia.com/indian-artist-organizes-public-art-project-across-indo-pakistan-border/

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