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12/01/2008: "Let’s Talk at the Jam Jar"
I recently saw a show at the Jam Jar in Dubai, which featured five young Pakistani artists from the Grey Noise Gallery in Lahore. The Jam Jar is one of the few real community arts organisations in Dubai so it doesn’t have to be as commercially slick as the local norm. This means it can show work that is more youth oriented and often experimental.
The show was called ‘Let’s Talk’ and it represented a dialogue between the five artists in which the work shown is linked as if it were a conversation. The central pillar of the whole concept was a small catalogue containing actual email dialogue and images the five artists exchanged when the show was in the planning stage. It was essential to read this catalogue, not only to help you understand what you saw, but also because it enabled a real sense of involvement in the show itself.
The catalogue provided a basic structure of the conversation being had in the work. After that it was up to the viewer to work out exactly where and how the different layers of the conversation intersected. This was challenging in itself because it was not always obvious. Just like a real conversation there were things that were unsaid, slight tangents and unresolved points. However, when juxtaposing the conversation being had by the work with the emailed exchanges between the artists, the show became a complete and cohesive entity. Silences in one and omissions in the other also became comprehensible.
The strongest conversational thread in the work was music or sound. The show began with Lala Rukh’s sound collage containing elements of nature, politics and traditional music with religious associations. Following on from this was Ayesha Jalal’s line of ‘sound words’ running the length of the opposite wall ending in the word ‘boom’. A full stop was provided by a very simple abstract red and white print entitled ‘Where is my God’? Turning the corner you see six small white graves each containing a different book. The interesting mix of titles spans a time frame of more than 10 years but the most recent is the biography of Benazir Bhutto. The creator of these works, Ayaz Jokhio, is strangely absent from the catalogue discussion. 
Next is one of Mehreen Murtaza’s large prints evoking sci-fi, technology, creation and myth, an image that does not seem to relate directly to the conversation but is understood when placed in the context of the email exchanges. Her other print relates more directly to the sound motif but also explores faith and technology as instruments of control. 
Around the next corner ‘Echo’ and ‘Sleeper’ by Fahd Burki are not what you expect to see having read the email exchanges and this intensifies the feeling that you have established an intimate relationship with the artists. The connection to the conversation in terms of sound is obvious but there are other more subtle undercurrents apparent from the information you have been given.
It’s difficult to elaborate further because the presence of the catalogue is so central to the experience. It becomes like a puzzle, which you have to solve and the more effort you put into it the more rewarding it is. It is a nice redefinition of interactive - one in which exclusively mental rather than physical processes become the ones interacting with the work. What is perhaps most amazing is that you get all this from only eight pieces of work and a rather diminutive catalogue! So the show may be small but it is perfectly formed.
That said you do leave wanting more. Although you can keep reflecting on the concept and the different ways in which the conversation works, you want it to develop. Perhaps into another room, with another catalogue, different artists and a counter argument! However, this would be a different show and it probably needs to remain small because another thing I found was that it was hard to see the individual pieces in their own right. They became secondary to the larger concept and it was that, and the mental challenges associated with this show, which remained rather than the work itself.
It is very unusual to go to an exhibition and leave with such a strong understanding of the whole creative process from defining the concept, creating the work and addressing the practicalities of putting it all together. It may be a little too much effort for the average glamorous gallery goer here but for the artists it’s great!
