786
Charcoal, chalk and graphite on paper
26.2×36.3 inches
2014
Available
Syed Hassan Mujtaba investigates the academic institution and his placement in the space to note the resemblance between acts and objects. His art practice is driven from the dogmatic apparatus and teaching methodology primarily in the mainstream high schools in Pakistan in relation to the particular setting where objects and humans play certain roles.
786 represents an excerpt from the blackboard which holds symbolic recognition nationwide including 786 (representing the Islamic phrase ‘In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful’). A black surface ages gray by keeping records of strokes, lines and shapes drew with chalk keep on producing letters, words and sentences very popular means of any language. A solitary surface bears plural ways of rendering everyday addressing young minds about this very idea of education to build a civilized society. Regardless of basic human individuality and uniqueness, it blindfolds all eyes staring at it as if seeing a ‘sole truth’. A blackboard is an evident witness of a distinct mechanical pattern of sharing information in the name of education where questioning does not lay its ground but instead believing in everything is a moral duty to be maintained. A blackboard itself denies the fact that every written line on its plane is removable; it does not sustain any ‘sole truth’ but only a glimpse of it if there is any for a particular amount of time. But what it delivers to masses, as a result, in classrooms is quite the opposite; a word in a stone, a very foundation of society would lay upon.
Born in 1985 in Lahore, Syed Hassan Mujtaba is an emerging artist who completed his BFA in Visual Arts from Beacon house National University, Lahore, Pakistan. He has exhibited in Pakistan and abroad, and is currently based in Stockholm, Sweden.
Image Courtesy | Syed Hassan Mujtaba