For a Better Future Together
Inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag (Edition of 3)
38x81cm
2013
Available
My practice draws on the surroundings in which I breathe. I am interested in the conflicted relationship between the East and the West; and glimpses of post-coloniality in the contemporary world. In my practice I work with notions of desire; in particular the dreams of the working class – the community we call ‘labour’. Attempting to delve deep into the mindset of the labour class, I explore their visions and influences, such as their aspirations for a Western or pseudo-Western (Dubai) life.
My recent work explores the idea of the future and our expectations of a better tomorrow. In the age of rising inflation where even educated people are living hand to mouth, the labour class, working on daily wages, can be unbelievably optimistic. Undeterred, and even sometimes oblivious of the cruelty in the world, they can have sanguine, bordering on fantastic dreams about a better, brighter future.
I am also deeply intrigued by the notion of ‘displacement’. To me, concurrent absence and presence is a very corporeal, innocent act – physical existence but mental absence in one place with physical absence and mental presence in another space and time. The work For a Better Future Together is reflective of both these concerns.
Though born in Lahore, Pakistan, Abid spent most of his childhood in the Middle-East. He graduated from his birthplace however, with a BFA from Beaconhouse National University, School of Visual Arts and Design, Lahore, in 2014. He continues to live and work in Lahore, Pakistan.
Photo Credits | Nauman Abid