{"@attributes":{"version":"2.0"},"channel":{"title":"Arshia Fatima Haq ","link":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com","description":"Arshia Fatima Haq ","pubDate":"Thu, 30 Jun 2022 17:15:13 +0000","generator":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com","language":"en","item":[{"title":"Home","link":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Home","pubDate":"Mon, 27 Aug 2018 00:34:12 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Home","description":""},{"title":"The Second Coming of Fatima","link":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/The-Second-Coming-of-Fatima","pubDate":"Sun, 08 Dec 2019 22:10:15 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/The-Second-Coming-of-Fatima","description":"\n\t\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Second Coming of Fatima | Installation, gypsum, gold leaf, velvet, powdered mica, dirt, 2019 \n\n\n  When the land of flowers required blood, \n  Our throats were the first to be cut\n  Still, the owners of the garden say, \n  This land is ours, and not yours. \nThe Koh-i-Noor, or Mountain of Light, is one of the most storied gems in the world. Originally sourced from the Golconda mines of Andhra Pradesh in the 18th century, the diamond now rests amongst the British Crown Jewels, after passing through several bloodied hands and developing the reputation of bringing ill fate to the men who possessed it. Lore that grew up around its misfortune says that it is meant to be worn only by gods and women. Fifty years after British lawyer Cyril Radcliffe\u2019s midnight drawing of an arbitrary line split the subcontinent in two \u2013 an ill-informed cartographic gesture that resulted in large scale violence, mass rape, a mortality toll of 2 million and the displacement of 14 million \u2013 both India and Pakistan continue to request the repatriation of this jewel, amongst other stolen artifacts.  Artist Arshia Haq, whose work considers this history and the many centuries of violence that led to its manifestation, centers the embodiment of mourning as a way to reconstruct her and her collective relationship to pain, loss, and violence. Women, in particular, were brutally objectified in the pursuit and desire for nationalism upon colonialism. Anthropologist Veena Das writes that, \u201cthe violence of the Partition was about inscribing desires on the bodies of women in a manner that we have not yet understood. In the mythic imagination in India, victory or defeat in war was ultimately inscribed on the bodies of women.\u201d Haq harnesses the affect of this historical trauma and creates a room for reflection. The result is a haunting installation, The Second Coming of Fatima, that speaks to the complex interplay between the validation and erasure of women, specifically within the context of conflict. Fatima, the only daughter of the prophet Muhammad, is an iconic figure in the Muslim female pantheon, and is often invoked in prayers of protection and healing. In a room covered with earth lies an arsenal of gilded throats, the jewels which are also the vessels of severed or silenced speech. Sitting on pedestals, the pieces are fragments of the violated body worthy of reverence, an homage to the physical costs of the colonial acquisition and appropriation of women\u2019s jewelry, wealth, and worth in the Indian subcontinent. Acquisition, on an intimate and institutional level, is explored here through the lack of repatriation of collection objects in Western museums and the violation of female intimacy, rites, and rights.A sound piece made in collaboration with artist Nour Mobarak merges a sonic rendition of the above Urdu poem with field sounds, from bird songs of the Deccan plateau to news broadcasts as well as more guttural evocations. Haq\u2019s installation pays homage to historical, religious, and mythical female characters, through which she gives form to the amorphous and nebulous process of mourning. Loss erupts from within the earthen soil, and grieving those sacrificed becomes a release, a catharsis that seeks to heal. As Das writes, \u201ccould that which died be named, acknowledged, and mourned?\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"},{"title":"Azadi","link":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Azadi","pubDate":"Thu, 30 Jun 2022 17:15:13 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Azadi","description":"\n\t\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAzadi | 2020\n\n\nAzadi is one of 80 sky-written compositions by artists as part of In Plain Sight, a coalition of artists standing against immigrant detention and the culture of incarceration conceived by Cassils and rafa esparza. Haq chose to invoke this word which means freedom in Urdu, Farsi, Hindi, Kurdish, Pashto, Azeri, Balochi, Armenian, Kurdish, Punjabi, Bengali, and Kashmiri, amongst others. Using this word evokes a transnational understanding and solidarity around the struggle for liberation, and invites the subversion of writing freedom in a foreign and often-feared script across the sky.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAzadi appeared in the sky above Orange County Intake and Release Center on July 3, 2020.\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"},{"title":"Romantic Scene","link":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Romantic-Scene","pubDate":"Wed, 30 Jun 2021 23:43:43 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Romantic-Scene","description":"\n\t\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRomantic Scene | film, 2019\n\n\nRomantic Scene is a short film examining the tropes of gendered violence in commercial Bollywood films from the 70s and 80s that I was exposed to during my childhood and adolescence. Almost every major film from this era would portray sexual assaults and physical violence towards women in an archetypal format designed to simultaneously horrify and titillate the audience. I worked with this archival footage, reshooting the videos from internet sources onto 16mm, then erased the bodies of the victims physically from the film using various chemical processes directly on the celluloid, frame by frame. My process was inspired by Naomi Uman\u2019s seminal film \u201cRemoved\u201d which I saw while I was studying with her in graduate school at CalArts. In this film, Uman worked with archival pornographic films and meticulously removed the bodies of the women \u2013 the objects \u2013 physically from the film, to leave a negative white space in their place. In a similar way I worked with the bodies of the women in these Bollywood films, to signify the erasure of agency and sanctioning of violence in the public consciousness that was encouraged by these scenes and sequences. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"},{"title":"Ajnabi Milan ","link":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Ajnabi-Milan","pubDate":"Sun, 28 Apr 2019 15:58:01 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Ajnabi-Milan","description":"\n\t\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAjnabi Milan | Performance, Sequins, Digital Print, 2019 \n\nAjnabi Milan (Strangers' Union) is an intervention in the form of a surrealist\/situationist procession of SWANA (South West Asia North Africa) diaspora with a message addressing alienation and inclusivity. The term alien refers to something unlike ourselves, whether a martian or a refugee. By emphasizing our alienness and our strangeness, we hope to leave a poetic impression and disruption on the every day in the unreal environment of Hollywood in Los Angeles though which we will be marching. We will begin at a freeway overpass with sequin signs that include a verse from the Bible, \"I was a stranger and you welcomed me\", spoken by Jesus to his disciples - an apt phrase and message of resistance in this moment in our political history of borders, walls, bans, and right wing exclusions. These signs will be printed in English and my native language Urdu, manufactured in a typical advertising process used in sequin billboards but subverting the usual message of consumption conveyed in this medium. Clothed in silver with silver face veils, we will march like a mirage of strangers from the freeway to the LACE gallery, where the signs will then be installed as the final phase of the performance. During the procession, we were accompanied by a live drummer playing percussive protest rhythms from South Asia. The performers included Amitis Motevalli, Anuradha Vikram, Azeem Khan, Asiya Mir, Hushidar Mortezaie, Khushboo Gulati, Maryam Hosseinzadeh, Perwana Nazif, Sasha Ali, and Shirin Guirguis. Music included selections by Discostan and sections of a mixtape by the Sand Ninja. Mask fabricated by Hushidar Mortezaie. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"},{"title":"The Ascension ","link":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/The-Ascension","pubDate":"Sun, 25 Nov 2018 05:02:12 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/The-Ascension","description":"\n\t\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Ascension | Performance, 2018. Ice, gold leaf, metal pulver. \n\nThis piece was created under the name Fanaa and conceptualized in response to the artist Cassils\u2019 seminal work \u201cTiresias\u201d, who invited three artists to create works in ice exploring themes of ephemerality, devotion and perseverance. Originally shown as part of a four-channel work \u201cSolution\u201d alongside works by Cassils, Rafa Esparza, and Keijaun Thomas. \n\nThe Buraq has been in my mind\u2019s eye since i was a child. She is a controversial figure, part woman, part horse, and part wing. She is not spoken of in the Quran explicitly, but lives strong in folklore and indigenous mythology, sites of resistance to fundamentalism and orthodoxy, sites of richness, imagination and power in counterpoint to austerity and control. I grew up in a home that did not permit iconography, so my choice to become an \u201cartist\u201d has been torn with conflict, both external and internal, and i feel so often paralyzed in my longing to make things. In trying to gild her before she disappears, I think of our very human desire to fix what is divine and unfixable, the simultaneous dreams and limits of alchemy, and the inevitable failure in this attempt is the gesture towards a devotional act, the only kind that makes sense to me.\n\nPerformance Concept: Arshia Fatima Haq\n\n\nFilm directed and produced by Cassils \n\n\nCo-edited by Arshia Fatima Haq and Cassils\nDP: Alison Kelly \nSound: Kadet Kuhne\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"},{"title":"Cyclic","link":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Cyclic","pubDate":"Tue, 22 Jan 2019 17:30:42 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Cyclic","description":"\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCyclic, Exhumed | Performance, 2018 (performed under the name Fanaa)\n\nCyclic is a durational performance expressing sublime and profane modes of devotion. Through this new, collaborative work commissioned by MOCA Tucson, the artists present actions which highlight the value of lives often deemed disposable, or even incomprehensible. \nPresented in the uniquely resonant \u201clung\u201d of Biosphere 2, a site which simultaneously evokes utopian and dystopian possibilities, Ron Athey, Cassils and Fanaa will bring their creative forces and subjectivities together in this performance that continuously unfolds in a triptych of tableaux vivants. Together, they evoke iconography across age-old faiths which mirror the present-day powers that be. Their cyclical modes of performative exploration orbit possibility and its failure.\n\n\u201cBack in utter dark, a light slowly rises on a mound of earth Fanaa has been buried under for nearly an hour. As the sound of a subterranean drone unravels into a Palestinian lullaby by Rim Banna played in reverse, Fanaa is dragged out of the earth by two men, in an act somewhere between an exhumation and a birth. She gathers the earth of her burial into a large sack, struggling to drag it with her, invoking Medea\u2019s action of carrying the soil of her homeland wherever she goes, as well as the guttural corporeality of Ana Mendieta\u2019s Earth Body series.\u201d\n\n- Ginger Shuck Porcella, Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson\n\n"},{"title":"In Search Of Sama","link":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/In-Search-Of-Sama","pubDate":"Mon, 27 Aug 2018 01:46:56 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/In-Search-Of-Sama","description":"\n\t\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn Search Of Sama | Experimental documentary, 2018\n\nSama explores the music and ecstatic devotional practice of\nSufism in Pakistan, a mystical and progressive form of Islam that\nemphasizes pacifism, intuition, creativity and a personal connection\nto the divine. A hybrid nonfiction feature that alternates between traditional\ndocumentary interview techniques, ethnographic documentation of ceremony and\nsong central to Sufi religious practice, and poetic depictions of mythological\ntales, Sama follows multiple devotees through their\neveryday lives, spiritual encounters, and intimate personal journeys. Voyaging\nwith these disciples through an increasingly volatile atmosphere of radical\nIslamic fundamentalism, Sama offers a unique glimpse into a\nmarginalized community through the eyes of its most vulnerable members.\n\n\n\nAn exploration of my personal relationship to Islamic practice\nwill be woven into this documentation throughout. I will trace my\ntransition from the orthodox Wahabi Sunni background in which I was raised\ntowards my growing interest in Sufism as a metaphorical site of resistance and\ncounternarrative to fundamentalist doctrines. Continuing my study of Sufism in\nLA, I will participate in ceremonies at the shrines to have a direct\nexperience of ritual devotion.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"},{"title":"Discostan","link":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Discostan","pubDate":"Mon, 27 Aug 2018 01:55:59 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Discostan","description":"\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\tDiscostan | Social practice, community engagement, performance, 2011-ongoing\nDiscostan is a diasporic discotheque which imagines past, present and future soundscapes from Beirut to Bangkok via Bombay. Over the last six years, this space has grown to be an interactive forum and space of convergence for QTPOC of the SWANA region. From presenting a vast archive of golden-age music to the most forward-thinking musical producers from our regions, performative collaborations with avante-garde artists outside of the white cube, to events raising awareness and galvanizing action for political engagement, Discostan is an ever-evolving space of possibility, imagination and liberation for immigrants and diaspora of South and West Asia and North Africa living in Los Angeles. Reconfiguring the nightclub and the dance floor as devotional spaces and radical sites of rewriting our histories and destines, we explore narrative threads including migration, celebration, conflict, nostalgia, homeland, and borders, often within realms of Islamic influence, through lenses of traditional forms, experimental renderings, and kaleidoscopic reinventions of pop culture. \n"},{"title":"Marilyn In Negative","link":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Marilyn-In-Negative","pubDate":"Mon, 27 Aug 2018 01:34:48 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/arshiahaq.com\/Marilyn-In-Negative","description":"\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMarilyn in Negative | Video, 2017\n\nMarilyn\nis an icon of femininity within the white imagination, frail and submissive,\nyet in embodying this persona Marilyn (who was a very different person in life\nfrom her on-screen character) wielded a lot of power. She made herself\ninto a fantasy figure, a vessel of problematic desire, and drew a lot of power\nfrom it while being completely objectified, at once liberated and entrapped.\nThe persona is so watertight that the image of the hair, the dress, the stance,\nimmediately signifies the avatar of Marilyn, an empty costume that anyone can\nstep into to embody the clich\u00e9s of white male desire. In wearing this persona\nas a woman of color, I perform a transubstantiation of the iconic imagery of\nHollywood, interpreting an icon of American female desire personas provide a vehicle\nto imagine our own singular identities, layered with the problems of\ncross-racial identifications and the cultural colonial entertainment system\ndisseminated to audiences around the globe.\n\n"}]}}