Lane Close – We Are Very Sorry For This Transient Inconvenience Series.
Digital Jacquard
24×40 inches
2012
Living in any big metropolis like Lahore, one is continuously experiencing a momentous ‘urban transition’, which has become so very tangible over these past few years.
I collect images from around me (they can be as ‘ordinary’ as newspaper images) that are stories of us from everyday life. These for me are symbols, symbolic of the present time (ironically a moment that is gone by, the photographed moment is already history!)
With this particular series of woven jacquards, I choose to translate the present day landscapes into jacquard tapestries, employing a 19th century technique that is symbolic of the first mechanization of the handloom, bringing in history through the medium. These contemporary ‘cityscapes’ are a take on the traditional European landscapes.
My works here are frozen moments from a travel to the past from the present, and vice versa. I like to talk about their connection and the connection of colonial history with the present moment.
Risham Syed graduated with BFA Honours in Painting from the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan in 1993. In 1996, she went on to do her MA from the Royal College of Art, London, UK. She has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, and is winner of the prestigious Abraaj Capital Art Prize in 2012 and was shortlisted for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2013. Living and working from Lahore, Risham Syed is currently teaching as Assistant Professor at the School of Visual Art and Design, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, Pakistan.
Image Courtesy | Risham Syed