Under the molsri tree by Sara Suleman

Under the molsri tree Noorjehan Bilgrami

Curated by Maha Malik

A Sense of the Fragile by Maha Malik

I. Under the molsri tree – the exhibition – is based upon a series of conversations and written correspondence between Noorjehan Bilgrami and myself, conducted over the latter half of 2014. I recall returning from a meeting at the artist’s studio at the end of summer, both surprised and elated by the mutuality of our discussion. We imagined the show as an exploration of the autobiographical gesture: in terms of actual reference and emotive presence, but also in terms of fields of practice, as crossovers between textile, the painterly, and print. The primacy of indigo in Noorjehan’s palette and a revisiting of colour sense formed our third trajectory. The exhibition was imagined as a fluid point of gathering and, in process, as a more personally intended body of work. In the same breadth, it also enabled inquiry into a second set of crossovers – between the literal and fictive, conceptual impulses inherent within the genre of autobiography. The motif of porous boundaries continued into our conceiving of the gallery space itself. Relieving emphasis on the singularity of a work, the pictorial environment was imagined as a holistic experience; plotting in terms of ‘a loose gestural space, related to smaller more precious works...a manner of free flow…at once a meditative space and a tactile visual experience.’ In the brief, intense period that led up to the show, Noorjehan would often also speak of a blind-sighted unfolding: ‘The images are innately coming together…I am working purely by instinct.’ And yet one would witness the fastidious labour, the creative armature, the steady rhythmic building up of her materials. Spontaneity and geometric precision, remembrance and reverie, sensuous unraveling and stoic restraint – these then were some of the productive binaries that mark this current body of work. Here already, and perhaps from long before, the current had begun…a pull that draws between curatorial view and the evolving art of Noorjehan Bilgrami.

II. The first reference to subjectivity, in its various meanings, emerges in the series of images titled ‘Safar’ (Journey). Through the use of natural dyed fabric – palm-sized sculptures – and markings in indigo, gold, charcoal, these works suggest a sense of containment, as though quiescent private maps. More specifically, they lift the vernacular term potli into formal aesthetics. The word itself translates as ‘small bundle’ – a swathe of fabric in which objects such as household textiles or precious belongings may be gathered and wrapped over, contained. Prevalent in the Subcontinent, this intimate and informal storage system has broadly been the purview of women. A tactile sense of privacy, holding, and filial sharing suggests itself through the feminine. The artist recalls its form and function within the culture of her own home, as a child growing up in Hyderabad Deccan. And the motif emerges, resonant in her work, at once everyday and rarefied. Here in miniature – the spaces in which we keep also, the remembrance of our lives. Its gentle folds, its siphoned end-knot, its very gravity is marked by that which the form contains. Each image details its own existential feel, even as it relates to a second, and to the series as a whole. III. We come then to the molsri treei – a kind of magical motif in the exhibition– for it facilitates entry into time. The biographic narrative unfolds in the language of spontaneous recollection: ‘It was a hot summer’s day in Karachi... I was visiting the National Museum, early 90s (while working on the Ajrak book), when suddenly I felt the sense of being transported straight to Hyderabad. There was a fragrance that was so heady it brought up waves of memory. I wondered where the fragrance was coming from. And then I realised, I was standing under a molsri tree. An ordinary looking tree, with flowers all around me. The flowers were inconspicuous, they were so small, but the fragrance was so

potent! potent! It brought It brought to to mind mind thethe entire entire environment environment of of mymy childhood, childhood, associated associated with with just just such such a tree. a tree. And And I recalled I recalled that that form form once once again: again:!jitni jitni taiz taiz dhoop dhoop utni utni ii ii thandak thandak [us[us ke]ke] saaey saaey mein mein auraur khushboo.’ khushboo.’ The experience bears fruition current exhibition title and lead body The experience bears fruition asas current exhibition title and in in thethe lead body work, ‘Molsri saaey taley’ (Under molsri tree). a meditation of of work, ‘Molsri keke saaey taley’ (Under thethe molsri tree). AsAs a meditation onon remembrance, work’s first consideration that something ephemeral, remembrance, thethe work’s first consideration is is that something asas ephemeral, abstract fragrance, can sustain such origins, a sense inner spatial asas abstract asas fragrance, can sustain such feltfelt origins, a sense of of inner spatial and temporal continuum. This followed a second consideration regarding and temporal continuum. This is is followed byby a second consideration regarding nature memory itself – of innate vulnerability, and also great thethe nature of of memory itself – of itsits innate vulnerability, and also of of itsits great reserves. Within a single frame, one may perceive fragility images, their reserves. Within a single frame, one may perceive thethe fragility of of images, their crumbling, fading, dissolving sense, also their inhering solidity, time crumbling, fading, dissolving sense, butbut also their inhering solidity, of of time itself itself perceived in consciousness, experienced as duration. perceived in consciousness, experienced as sensual duration. Conceived a photomontage series, this second trajectory work invokes Conceived asas a photomontage series, this second trajectory of of work invokes family photographs, Deccan early 20th century, point mooring. family photographs, Deccan early 20th century, asas itsits point of of mooring. These are juxtaposed withofimages of the molsri tree as photographed by areThese juxtaposed with images the molsri tree as photographed by the artist. themateriality artist. Theofmateriality of is the images is further furbished with acrylic paint, The the images further furbished with acrylic paint, charcoal charcoal drawing, panels of silk ricefabric. paper,In malmal fabric. In this, a drawing, and panels and of rice paper, this, a and rich silk ambivalence rich ambivalence informs workof–proximity at once aand sense of proximity informs the work – at once athe sense great distance –and as great distance – as figures reside across faintweight grid base. The weight figures reside across and within a faintand gridwithin base.aThe of gesture and of gesture fromphotography, early portraitand photography, and Deccan the consistent gaze from and earlygaze portrait the consistent cultureDeccan of culture of particular adornment, particular textile details, anchor works in historic adornment, textile details, anchor the works in the historic time. Their time. Their contemporary treatment, however, generates a different quality contemporary treatment, however, generates a different quality of force, of force, anachronistic, beyond or mere more nostalgia. than mereSomething nostalgia. Something anachronistic, but beyondbut or more than cinematic cinematic happens in these works. Bythe thisrevelation I mean the of an inner happens in these works. By this I mean ofrevelation an inner lucent lucent and motional A living atmosphere, auratic presence is created and motional quality. Aquality. living atmosphere, auratic presence is recuperated, throughthrough montage. sensual coherence, continuum, is perhaps the created, the This medium of montage. Thisinsensual coherence, in the

series’ most powerful offering.

iii

IV. ‘Tasavvur-e-nir’ (Vision of indigo) suggests a revisitation of and a meditation on the power of the natural dye, indigo. It also gestures at the third aspect of our autofictional inquiry. The digital video installation draws upon several independently filmed sequences, seamed together, and projected onto a large suspended malmal surface. Hand-held quality footage of the Indian Ocean, recurring wave sequences, merge and parse away from the procedure of indigo dye making (Karachi). And these are in turn animated by footage of the artist’s loose gestural work with indigo paint on a spread ream of paper. Each sequence emerges and dissolves into the other, carrying forward into abstraction the motif of crossovers and porous boundaries. Their rhythmic build of emergence and dissolution, and a deepening blue wash, over time, fosters a state of meditative awareness. And it releases an experiential form perhaps at the heart of the exhibition – the reverie. Often understood in pejorative terms, as an absence of productivity and a flight from (objective) reality, this dilation of the imagination is redeemed and revalued by thinkers such as the French theorist, Gaston Bachelard. In his book entitled, The Poetics of Reverie, he affirms it as a life-giving and liberational affect. He argues that contrary to contemporary logic, the faculty of reverie extends history and expands our experience of the real, or that which is. ‘It is striking that the most favourable field for receiving the consciousness iv of freedom is none other than reverie.’ In place of fixity, reverie allows for an opening upon the world, the arising of subjectivity, in the realm of flux. Past visible ‘slopes of memory’v lie intimate experiences of depth, equanimity, enchantment. This is the true invocation, the temperament of all three series

in this exhibition. The figure of reverie then, in its transformative and transporting potential, emerges as a central theme in the current works of Noorjehan Bilgrami, at least for this viewer. One may slowly begin to receive their ideational power, or fragrance, so to speak. From within the language of remembrance and ageing, place and dissolution, the ordinary as exceptional, there lifts a quiet impression. It is the image of healing. The proper subject of this exhibition – the autobiographical gesture – is only now beginning to reveal itself, as a seed thought, as nourishment.

Maha is a freelance art writer based in Karachi. She has a background in contemporary English literature, and she currently teaches at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. Her areas of research include magical realist fiction, 20th century autobiography, and traditions in lyric prose. In particular, her writing is concerned with literary and visual image-making. ‘Under the molsri tree’ is her third curatorial project.

Endnotes iBotanical name for molsri flower: Mimusops Elengi ii The shade of the molsri tree grows cooler and more fragrant, the stronger the sun’s rays bear down. iii

Theorist Pierre Nora speaks of particular historical moments where consciousness of a break with the past is bound up with the sense that memory has been torn out— but torn in such a way as to pose the very problem of the embodiment of memory (or as the forging of sites where a sense of historical continuity persists). In other words, there are ‘sites of memory’, personal and collective, because contemporary life no longer affords real self-continuous environments of memory. Much has been written in this regard, concerning loss of meaning and futurity, cultural violence, and with particular reference to the history of the Subcontinent. If time past is thus understood as something open, contested, it involves of necessity, reconstructive aesthetic expression. The work of remembrance appears imperative, then, within dissociative cultures such as our own (and where it invokes the vitality of concepts such as subjecthood, relationality, creation). iv Gaston Bachelard. The Poetics of Reverie. Beacon Press, Boston: 1960, 1971. pg. 101. v

Ibid. pg. 102.

Milestones by Aasim Akhtar

another year is gone a traveller’s shade on my head, straw sandals at my feet - Basho (1685)

For more than three decades, Noorjehan Bilgrami has pursued a singular path as apprentice to the greatest South Asian masters of traditional textiles, in search of the quintessence of the spirit and the mastery of ancestral techniques in order to develop the fullest freedom of expression. The resulting works powerfully demonstrate the self-discipline and strong will of a woman who from the earliest days has always blazed her own trail. Her journey to enter a pure, global relationship with the universe through painting has equally demanded the highest standard of self-preparation and situates the space within which she paints as a fragment of the universe, a matrix infinitely toying with reality’s forms. First comes the paper (rice paper, kozo, gampi, wasli), the background upon which Noorjehan materialises her own void as a fragment of universe ready to receive a mark. Composed of layer on layer of pigments and natural dyes and minerals in vibration, of light waves of cinnabar red, lichen, Cistercian white, woven as a veil of fluctuating presences and absences, revealing the sensitive and explicit pattern of living tissue, the eye can follow the breath’s wandering flow through the maze and links of its many meridians. This background, which Noorjehan calls the ‘Great Subtle,’ the ‘Mysterious, a dissolving of the self into an intensely alive vacuity, is an essential preliminary to the ultimate form that will take shape upon it. The first ‘ambiguity’ in Noorjehan’s work is to have made indigo and natural dye the means of her art though her painting, and it is in no way traditional. Her work is neither word nor picture and is therefore equidistant from these two sources, which nonetheless nourish it. On her monochrome ground that is the fruit of

a long reflection, she uses indigo to inscribe strokes that are instantaneous in their execution. Even when using the obvious data from one or other of this dual repertoire, Noorjehan subverts them. Anyone taking a look at the edges of her paper on which the compositional phases are registered – the obvious but discreet traces, the successive strata of paint and then dyes that are retained as silent witnesses deliberately left visible by the painter – will learn from this oblique angle that her work, no matter how spontaneous its last state may be, has required a long gestatory period until the final form no longer stems from deliberate intention but, as she says, from inner experience. In Noorjehan’s painting, the internal contradiction conveys its singularity: there is a relationship between form and content that runs counter to what is usual in painting. Instantaneous time of gesture – ‘Lightening steers the universe’ quoting Heraclitus – makes the work coagulate into the slash of a scar, the wonderment that refuses anything that is not such a sign. Noorjehan’s brush strokes, on the other hand, only exist by layering the previous time that they reveal. By obliterating the surface, they underline the slow, minutious preparation, the subtle shades that are masked by the breadth of the monochrome field. The slow maturation of a painting, which only achieves validity when the sign is affixed, is in a certain way the reflection of the inner void. At one point, Noorjehan gave a perfect explanation of what it means to be pervaded by the breath of the world: ‘Following your destiny, the way a day breathes, being at one with the moment, the living world.’ But when she mentions the perfect cumulus cloud behind the molsri tree branches to the right of her studio roof or the profusion of dewdrops, she seems to forget that the history of painting pervades her just as much, and that her slow work on backgrounds, which lends such sumptuousness to the cinnabars and the bronze greens and the indigos that receive the sign, is just as revelatory of her long acquaintance with Rothko. In the series entitled, ‘Under the molsri tree/Molsri ke saaey taley,’ the spirit is at work through several expressions, and the breath flows from one to the other, pulsating in resonance, sometimes within the mental

construction, requiring extreme concentration and asceticism from the artist. Also, where the brush strokes give life to telluric emanations, to express spontaneously an inner song that seems to glide on paper with the nimbleness of the virtuoso pianist. ‘A painting,’ says Noorjehan, ‘is only the beginning of a journey.’ It is also the end. The circle comes back on itself without ever closing: no painting is ever an end to painting. When Sengai did his unforgettable ink painting linking the infinity of the circle to the triangle and the square, he revealed ‘the ten thousand things’ that are the entire universe. In characteristically succinct statements, Noorjehan has repeatedly affirmed, ‘the function of art work is the renewal of memories of moments of perfection.’ For her, memories evoked by art did not only involve subjective feelings but abstract emotions, most notably, those of happiness, innocence, and beauty. Sensations experienced when contemplating the natural world can also generate such emotions, she believes. ‘My work’s really about the feeling of beauty and freedom that you experience in landscape…my response to nature is really a response to beauty.’ Vast, unbridled expanses – prairies, plains, deserts, the night sky, the ocean – and their counterparts at a more modest scale – leaves, blossoms, molsri flowers, birds in flight – are all potential sources for her. Yet a crucial prerequisite for conjuring the abstract emotions that make up the ‘Ideal in the mind’ is an untroubled mind. Since in her aesthetic, art is grounded in an attitude, not a style, it could also find affinities with aspects of Zen Buddhist thought, which she encountered on moving to Japan in the early 2000s, as well as with the heritage that has been formative as she kept returning to Canada. Above all, it has been shaped by the lessons she drew from two sages, Sengai and, in particular, Basho, who advised that rather than looking or listening to others one should be guided by one’s ‘own mind and soul.’

As seen in ‘Journey/Safar,’ Noorjehan has introduced a pared-down vocabulary of simple geometric shapes, symmetrically and frontally disposed in delicate fields of pale earth hues – greens, greys, beiges, creams and indigos – built up from barely visible overlays of coolly impersonal brushstrokes. The combination of an associative title with delicately atmospheric spaces (sometimes pastoral, sometimes cosmic) retains vestiges of the phenomenal world: suggestions of water streaming down a window, blurring a subtly toned hazy landscape beyond, or the faint glow of penumbral twilight stealing over a meadow in summer. Childhood memories of landscape-based experiences seem to have provided points of departure for these transitional paintings. The paintings in this series solicit an interactive engagement. Hovering between a nearsighted scrutiny that is inevitably partial and a distanced overview that risks reducing the work to a mute, blanched plane, the viewer inhabits a narrow zone. As Noorjehan negotiates an optimal vantage point, the image seems to coalesce into a velum, a haze, or a halation – a visual tremolo or a blush of refulgent colour. Immanent and unbidden, these configurations of parallel lines and rectilinear grids come to be read as images rather than simply as form. The fugitive perceptual effect through which the image or figment is evoked proves, moreover, to be less an illusion than an optical sensation. Central to this charged encounter is a heightened attentiveness to the material details of the surprisingly diverse formal repertoire Noorjehan has by now evolved within her narrowed syntax: patterns composed of reticulated linear marks, skeins woven from repeated dashes and dots, razor-sharp incisions subdividing a matte plane, warm grounds contrasting with cool grids or the converse, and febrile graphite webs that pinion washy overlays so that they never quite become atmospheric. Minute fluctuations and irregularities in the thickness or density of the penciled or painted lines and in the steadiness of her hand further animate the surfaces. Shinto, the only authentically Japanese religion, has traditionally encouraged a veneration of and respect for nature and all its products: a phenomenon deeply rooted in Japanese culture. The main thing Noorjehan has in common with this culture is her

adoration of and interest in the beauties of the natural world. In the organic forms, textures and colours of nature, she sees an endless source of visual inspiration. If nature can be regarded as the soul of the Japanese people, and if eyes symbolise the soul, then Noorjehan can be said to see nature through Japanese eyes. Her preference is for textiles in which a certain rustic irregularity reveals the hand of nature and which intrigue the viewer by variations of weave and hue. Accordingly, her subtle aesthetic sense is governed by elements, which are highly appreciated in Japan: the beauty of imperfection, of the intuitive, and of features, which allow freedom for the individual imagination. Cloth, particularly, ‘kora latha’ finds its way into her new body of work either as a folded scroll, or a cutout square or more significantly as a tiny bundle or wrapping cloth. Whether it contains, however symbolically, the ashes of the dead or unfulfilled dreams and wishes, or simply ‘rakht-e-safar’ or ‘zaad-e-rah’ (accompaniments to a journey) or the burden of the soul, remains open to conjecture and interpretation. While there is a certain beauty of perfection in ‘Tasavvur-e-nir’, Noorjehan is interested in the series of images as carriers and containers of meaning. They are intended to be outward manifestations of inward contemplation as well as vehicles of that contemplation itself. They are akin to an isthmus, known in Arabic as barzakh, a gateway and a bridge between the human and the divine. Passage through it is the first stage of the journey towards the Divine. In the serial nature of her work, Noorjehan implies the movement of a journey and in the combination of square, which is a symbol of Earth – it embraces the notions of the four directions, the four elements, the four qualities (dry, wet, hot, cold), the four seasons and the four primary colours – and circle, symbolic of the Divine, from which the square is derived and which is implied by the spinning square, she suggests that life is in a state of isthmus, a place of mediation between the terrestrial and the spiritual. Noorjehan’s paintings and installation present the

possibility of physically enacting the entry into a sacred space and leaving behind the world of outward appearance. As the viewer passes through the slit and beholds the images on the muslin cloth, which is like a skin, he crosses the threshold from outside to inside. Although his body is actually confined, he is not easily able to perceive the width of the passage because of its highly reflective nature. He thus transcends his confinement and metaphorically makes contact with the infinite. ‘Tasavvur-e-Nir’ is the only piece perhaps in which the viewer becomes an active participant and in which the artist’s ideas of introspection and journeying become a physical reality. By entering the installation space the viewer leaves the perceptive world behind. When I think of ‘Molsri ke saaey taley,’ I envision not a collection of objects but, rather, a collection of memories realised through in-depth conversations with the artist. The methodology of installation by the curator, Maha Malik, allows a direct, unmediated approach to the work so that the voice of the artist resonates, where what happens in the space between each work becomes as important as what is happening within a single work. The combination of space and time given to both the work and the viewer nurtures a deeper, more personal understanding, contemplation, and appreciation of the art. As at the Rothko Chapel, the rooms are nondenominational, but if they are vehicles of any faith, it might be the faith in the potential of art to affect our perception of the world. These rooms are not an exhibition, they are more than presentation; they are a project based on an in-depth commitment. Aasim Akhtar is an independent artist, art critic and curator. His writing is published in magazines, catalogues, and books both nationally and internationally, and his art work has been widely exhibited, more recently at Whitechapel Gallery, London, as part of a commemorative show entitled, Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (2010). He was a curator-in-residence at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan in 2002. He is the author of two published books, Regards Croises (Alliance Francaise, Islamabad, 1996) and The Distant Steppe (Alliance Francaise, Islamabad, 1997), and has just finished writing his third, Dialogues with Threads: Traditions of Embroidery in Hazara. He teaches Art Appreciation and Studio Practice at The National College of Arts, Rawalpindi.

a quiet narrative…meditative… indigo…a different realm…a depth of calm and serenity... yet mysterious, alive…this quality of blue… seam together the sea, indigo dye, painting with indigo… images transfer, transform, dissolve…. we tap into the quality of craft, the unnamed, working with hands…

the indigo series... small, holdable, intimate. cloth indigo dyed, patchwork, layered, paper indigo... gold. itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been raining since morning, quiet... paper in front. cloth. plain. and patterned. preference for the plain. the dotted line stills the mindâ&#x20AC;Śshowing the thought process one stitch at a time. slowly all mundane thoughts cease. but what has this to do with art? fragile environsâ&#x20AC;Ś there are things we hold within us that allow us to survive and make senseâ&#x20AC;Ś the seed inside the fertile image....

NOORJEHAN BILGRAMI

ACADEMICS 2001-02 1971-74 1968-69

Japan Foundation Fellowship, Tama Art University, Tokyo Diploma in Fine Art, Central Institute of Arts & Crafts, Karachi National College of Arts, Lahore

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014 2014 2012 2010 2009 2009 2008 2008 2008 2004

Under the molsri tree, KOEL Gallery, Karachi Within Without, Barefoot Gallery, Colombo In the Land of Darkness is the Wellspring of Life, Paradise Road Gallery, Colombo Works on Paper, Chawkandi Gallery, Karachi Void Luminous, Rohtas Gallery, Islamabad Traversing Terrains, Rohtas I, Lahore The Sacred Square, Nomad Gallery, Islamabad The Indigo Series, Work on Paper, Indigo exhibition, Johannesburg Foldingâ&#x20AC;¦Unfolding, Canvas Gallery, Karachi Unbleached Mark, Canvas Gallery, Karachi

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2012 2008 2007 2007 2006 2006 2003 2002 2000

Celebrating Art: 30 Years of Rohtas, National Art Gallery, Islamabad Nocturnal Song, Alhamra Gallery, Lahore Moving Ahead, Inaugural Exhibition at National Art Gallery, Islamabad Shagird 1970, Indus Gallery, Karachi Calligraphy, Amin Gulgee Gallery, Karachi Body, Amin Gulgee Gallery, Karachi 8th National Exhibition of Visual Arts, Alhamra Gallery, Lahore A Tribute to Ali Imam, Indus Gallery, Karachi Art Fest 2000, Sheraton Hotel, Karachi

TEXTILE EXHIBITIONS 2012 2010 2008 2007 2007 2006 2006 2005 2004 2003 2001 2000

Colours and Rhythm of the Indus, Fashion Show, Singapore From the Land of the Sufis, Fashion Show, UNESCO Palace, Beirut Fashion Show, natural dyes, ISEND 2008, International Symposium and Exhibition on Natural Dyes, Daegu, Korea Textiles of the Islamic World, Fashion Show at MAIWA Textile Symposium, 2007 - Tradition & Revival, Vancouver Exhibition of Natural Dyed Textiles and Furniture, The Indigo Story Unfolds, Croweaters Gallery, Lahore International Fashion Show, Shalimar, UNESCO Seminar, Hyderabad Deccan World Craft Council, Asia Pacific Region Dialogue, Kuala Lumpur International Trade Fair, New Delhi Textile Exhibition of Pakistan, Jurgen Lehl and Co, Tokyo Pakistan Single Country Exhibition, Tokyo Exhibition of Natural Dyed Textiles, Crow Eaters Gallery, Lahore Exhibition of Textiles, Southwards of the Silk Road, Didrichsen Museum, Helsinki

RESEARCH, PAPERS & PUBLICATIONS, LECTURES AND FILM 2014 2014 2013

2008

Recent Trends in Natural Dyes, The Romance of Indigo, 50th Anniversary of World Craft Council, Dongyang, Zhejiang Province, China Craft Traditions in Contemporary Design - Preservation and Continuity. International Conference on Roots and Bonds in Art and Architecture of the East,Tehran The Rich Legacy of Asian Textiles and Innovative Contemporary Adaptations – Embellished by Dyeing, Hand-printing & Embroidery: KOEL’s Initiatives to Preserve Pakistan’s Textile Heritage. Tehran International Congress, Tehran Revival of Naqaashi, the Traditional Art of Patterning in Contemporary Architecture of Pakistan, International Research Council of Islamic Culture and Arts, The International Congress on Employment of Traditional Handicrafts in Architectural Projects, Tunis Revitalization of Sindh’s Traditional Cloth - Story of Indigo and Madder Ajrak, Recording and Reviving Endangered Dyeing Traditions. ISEND 2008, International Symposium and Exhibition on Natural Dyes, Daegu, Korea Born of Fire – Salahuddin Mian Remembered – 220 pg book accompanying the retrospective exhibition of Salahuddin Mian– the first ceramist of Pakistan, Indus valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi

2008

2006

2006 2006 2004 2001- 02 2002 2001 2000

Yeh Kiya! 55 mins. video documentary on Salahuddin Mian, accompanying the retrospective exhibition, Indus valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi From the Seeds of Sindh to the Shores of Japan: the Story of Indigo Dye, Economic Development and Marketing of Natural Dyes, International Symposium on Natural Dyes, Organized by UNESCO, Hyderabad Deccan Clay, Cloth, Wood, Metal, and Stone: The Craft Traditions of Pakistan, 208 pg. book commissioned by Export Promotion Bureau, Government of Pakistan Clay Cloth, Wood, Metal, and Stone: The Craft Traditions of Pakistan, 45 mins. video documentary commissioned by Export Promotion Bureau, Government of Pakistan Tana Bana – The Woven Soul of Pakistan, 186 pg. bilingual catalogue published for the exhibition by the same name, Japan Folk Craft Museum, Tokyo Research and documentation, The Indigo Traditions of Japan The Mysterious Nir (Indigo), paper presented at The Color Congress 2002, Iowa Traditional Textiles of Pakistan and Indigo Research – Pilot Project in Miani, essay in SenShoku Alpha, Textile Journal, Tokyo Ajrak, Cloth from the Soil of Sindh, Public Lecture at Didrichsen Museum, Helsinki

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2009 2009 2008 2003-4

2000 1996-97 1991-99 1978

Established KOEL Gallery, Karachi Established KOEL Café in partnership Curator, Retrospective Exhibition: Salahuddin Mian Remembered, Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture Curator, Exhibition of Traditional Textiles, Tana Bana: The Woven Soul of Pakistan, Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, California and Nihon Mingeikan, The Japan Folk Craft Museum, Tokyo Curator, Exhibition of Traditional Textiles, Tana Bana: The Woven Soul of Pakistan, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon Honorary Head, Department of Fine Art, Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture Executive Director, Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture Established KOEL, House of Block Printed Fabrics, Embroidery & Weaves

AFFILIATIONS • • • • • • • • • • •

President, Pursukoon Karachi, NGO, for revitalisation of Karachi Chairperson, Board of Governors, Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture Member, HEC, Higher Education Commission – Government of Pakistan Member Academic Committee of National College of Arts, Lahore Member, National Crafts Council, Pakistan Member, World Crafts Council International Member, Asian Crafts Council Member, Sindh Artists’ Association Founding Member, Volunteers for Restoration & Saving our Architectural Heritage (VRSAH), Karachi Founding Member, Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi Trustee, Mohatta Palace Gallery Trust, Karachi

email: noorjehanbilgrami@gmail.com | gallerykoel@gmail.com

Work Specifications I. Under the molsri tree | Molsri ke saaey taley Images 1–6 41” x 26” Acrylic, graphite, silk and malmal cloth, and rice paper on Arches paper. Print segments in archival ink. 2015 Pgs. 28-39 Image 7 30” x 22.5” Acrylic, graphite, silk and malmal cloth, and rice paper on Arches paper. Print segments in archival ink. 2015 Pgs. 40-41 II. Vision of Indigo | Tasavvur-e-nir Digital video installation, projection on malmal. 2015 Pgs. 44-53 III. Journey | Safar Images 1–7 20.5” x 12.75” Acrylic, indigo-dyed cloth, rice paper, and graphite on Arches paper. 2015 Pgs. 56-75 Images 8-9 8.5” x 12” Acrylic, indigo-dyed cloth, rice paper, and graphite on Arches paper. 2015 Pgs. 76-79

Acknowledgments Molsri ke saaey taley | Under the molsri tree KOEL Gallery, Karachi 29 January—9 February 2015

With thanks: Edited by: Maha Malik Catalogue design: Sara Suleman Contributing writer: Aasim Akhtar Photography: Video photography – Akber Moeen, Noorjehan Bilgrami Photography of art works – Majyd Bayg Photography of artist and studio – Tehmina Ahmed Photographs of molsri tree and flowers – Noorjehan Bilgrami Editor, video: Syed Hisham Masood Calligrapher: M. Siddique Framer: Hatim bin Ibrahim Printed by: Murtaza G. Abbas Azhar Azeem Khan, Azmeena Alladin, M. Mirzaman, Manzoor Ahmad, Naveed Sadiq

Copyright: Noorjehan Bilgrami All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.