Some of the artworks displayed at the exhibition.\u2014Fahim Siddiqi \/ White Star<\/p>\n
KARACHI: What does the phrase \u2018body language\u2019 mean? One of the answers is: a form of communication for human beings that does not involve \u2018words\u2019. This begs the question: is body language easy to decipher? Yes and no. Yes, because you can easily notice when someone expresses pain or happiness without verbal messaging. No, because it has a lot to do with instinct, and it\u2019s never easy to interpret instinctual movements \u2014 they can be deceptive. A group show curated by Emaan Mahmud titled Bodies that Speak,which recently concluded at the Vasl Art Gallery, raises similar queries. The artworks that the viewer, in turn, get to see, are thought provoking and visually appealing.<\/p>\n
The five participating artists \u2014 Alishba Binte Faysal, Farhat Ali, Lariab Ahmad, Maryam Arslan and Sarah Mir \u2014 treat the subject in a way that speaks volumes for their understanding of how to retain, and in certain cases enhance, the \u2018aesthetic\u2019 component of a painting while delineating a super serious topic.<\/p>\n
As one enters the gallery space, one gets to read the following note on a wall: \u201cThis exhibition gathers artists whose works unravel the complete intersections of gender, identity and politics within the intimate architectures of everyday life. In living rooms, classrooms and wedding halls, the seemingly ordinary sites of belonging \u2014 the personal becomes the stage where the political quietly unfolds\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the artworks displayed at the exhibition.\u2014Fahim Siddiqi \/ White Star<\/p>\n
This \u2018political\u2019 element makes the subject super serious. But, and it\u2019s an important but, the five talented souls, by virtue of artistic flair, present their creative pursuits as storytelling sessions.<\/p>\n
This implies that the viewer doesn\u2019t, in general, require the artist whose work s\/he is seeing to say what the exhibit is all about \u2014 the displayed works have an intriguing quality to reveal before the viewer in an effortless way. One is not suggesting that they can be interpreted easily. Rather, one is trying to suggest that the stage where the person and the political meet are identifiable. This may be seen in the following impressive artworks: Alishba\u2019s \u2018The In Between\u2019, Lariab\u2019s \u2018It Is My Shadow That Dances Along With Me, Maryam\u2019s \u2018The Geography of Joy\u2019 series, and Sarah and Farhat\u2019s untitled pieces.<\/p>\n
Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of the artworks displayed at the exhibition.\u2014Fahim Siddiqi \/ White Star KARACHI: What does the phrase \u2018body…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-423612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}