Tuesday, January 17, 2012 – Saturday, January 21, 2012 I participated in MAWA’s master class, an intensive mentorship experience, with the world-renowned interdisciplinary Pakistani artist Huma Mulji.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about her: “Huma Mulji’s work has moved more and more towards looking at the absurdities of a post-colonial society in transition, taking on board the visual and cultural overlaps of language, image and taste, that create the most fantastic collisions. She describes the time we live in as moving at a remarkable speed. In regard to Pakistan, Mulji refers to the experience of “living 200 years in the past and 30 years in the future all at once”. She is interested in looking at this phenomenon with humor, to recognize the irony of it, formally and conceptually. Rather than dwell on and follow existing theoretical issues of living and working in a post-colonial nation and applying those stagnant studies to a lived existence, she examines the pace of cultural change through her artwork. Mulji’s sculptural works respond to the possibilities of making things in Pakistan, and embrace low-tech methods of “making”, together with materials and forms that come from another time, and that are “imported”, “newly discovered” or “re-appropriated”. For example the work Arabian Delight is a low-tech taxidermy camel, stuffed in a suitcase. It plays with ideas of travel, transition, and of mental and physical movement, combined with an old world symbol of the camel, forced into the suitcase, looking formally uncomfortable, but nonetheless happy. This particular work also examines the relationship between Pakistan and the Gulf States and the manipulation of the Governments of Pakistan, the “Arabisation” of the country, for years, towards all but wiping out a “south Asian” identity, to replace it with a “Muslim” identity. For Mulji, this in itself is forced, unnatural, and disagreeable. However, she also approaches this problem from the angle of someone living within it: therefore looking at it with humor, and recognizing the absurd results of the situation, in daily life, and through interactions with each other, and the world.”
The goal of each MAWA Master Class is to take participating artists to the next level in their career by providing rigorous critique, networking, and experienced professional advice; by challenging expectations and comfort levels; and by elucidating the realities of the art world today. Master classes are designed for artists who already have a professional practice, but feel a need to restoke their creative engines and/or restrategize regarding their career goals.
Discussion topics included the challenges of large-scale sculpture, issues of cross-cultural representation, and how to navigate the perils of the international art world. She also conducted studio visits with participants and provided detailed, constructive feedback.
