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Ismet Jawwad Khawaja

Dancing to Volare Editions 5
Video projection with sound 3:45 mins
2008
Available | Edition 1/5 owned by Mohammad Ali Talpur

Ismet Jawwad deals with self-portraiture in her video works. She is interested in understanding the human psyche, and the conflicts a human being faces throughout their existence. Dancing to Volare is a piece about different aspects of a woman coming together in a harmonious albeit a disjointed dance. The image is a few stills, out of the approximately 4 minute video, put together. The artist has recorded herself dancing cut up in four different channels, so that the dancing body parts are deliberately a little out of sync with each other, thus subtly hinting at the conflict beneath the apparently smooth running exterior.
Dancing to Volare comes towards the end of a series of videos all dealing with concepts of duality such as life and death, fear and love, letting go and holding on, the desire to fly versus the fear of heights. This specific piece however, is a celebration of duality and contradictions – which make the fabric of life. The self-portrait artist is forever on a quest of understanding the self, deeply sensitive – like all artists – to the ebb and flow of the currents of inner turmoil.
Jawwad is a dancer and singer, a dance teacher and choreographer at Lahore Grammar School, in Lahore, Pakistan. She received her Bachelors in Visual Arts with honors from Beaconhouse National University in 2008, and taught video art in their School of Visual Arts and Design from 2010 to 2014.

Photo credits | Ismet Jawwad and Usman Latif