Category: UNIT 1

A category under which all the blogs I wrote during Unit 1 of the MA can be found.

The Untold Edition — Tree Planting Drive with Akhuwat Foundation

I had been researching a lot of public art projects and they inspired me to recreate the idea that public art can break walls. Literally. So the first thing I did when I landed in Karachi was go and buy bricks. Yup. 500 red bricks which we then painted a pale terracotta and stenciled with ‘The Untold Edition” name. The idea was to build a wall out of them along with 500 plants and to invite people to pick up a brick, take home a plant and plant it with the brick placed next to it. Symbolically, and literally, public …

The Untold Edition — On Uncertainty

The Untold Edition — On Uncertainty

There have been many (too many?) blogposts on this subject. The reason, I think, is the high degree of uncertainty regarding this particular step. You could say this project was like scaling a wall. And at every point of fatigue, I basically felt like I should just let go. So it was a struggle to not quit and keep moving upwards. In the most recent Skype session, I very proudly announced that I feel freer in my artistic practice of late. Scaling The Untold Edition wall has a lot to do with leaving behind the fear of creating terrible, or …

Research paper drafts, thoughts and tutorial with Gareth

Research paper drafts, thoughts and tutorial with Gareth

The blog seems to have been neglected of late, but that’s actually not true. In an earlier lecture Jonathan mentioned that this reflective practice could happen in several ways. Since my time is currently taken up completely by my job, working on the Iridescent Alloys and my research paper, I haven’t been able to type out coherent thoughts into blogposts as often as I like. But I have been creating a reflective record in other ways, I have been noting things down in notebooks, scribbling and doodling ideas, and of course keeping my visual journal, all of which I will …

Finalizing the research paper — step 1

Finalizing the research paper — step 1

Post truth and public art were the two keywords my research began on. I even identified a research question in the previous blog post. I just finished reading Lee McIntyre’s book and it cemented the fact that the post-truth era is intriguing and very pertinent, and definitely something I want to include into my research.           So here’s the title and abstract I have so far, bear in mind that this abstract is the pre-completion abstract and will probably become more succinct once my paper is complete: Public Art in the Post-Truth Era A commentary on …

Thinking things through…

Thinking things through…

In order to execute a public art project that involves interaction with an audience, you first need to reach that audience. While organizing The Untold Edition I realized how much I had to rely on social media to connect to people. I realized the power social media wielded over my target audience and how much it swayed their likes and dislikes. I also realized the power social media could afford to me, if I learned to wield it. That began my fascination with this digital post-truth era anew. I hopped onto the social media bandwagon about four years ago, and …