Osman Yousefzada’s Highly effective New Present Delves Into the Migrant Expertise

Osman Yousefzada has spent the higher half of the yr visiting Pakistan to work on his newest exhibition on the V&A. Shuttling between Karachi and Lahore, the interdisciplinary artist, designer, and author has spent hours working alongside native craftsmen, sourcing offcuts from garment factories and overseeing the manufacturing of assorted intricate items. 

Yousefzada’s work is underpinned by the idea that the private is the political and the private is the nationwide; What is Seen and What’s Not is an extension of this ideology. By way of three site-specific installations unfold throughout the museum, Yousefzada displays on the seventy fifth anniversary of Pakistan by exploring themes of migrant identification and the influence colonial growth has on local weather change.

Guests will first encounter part-printed, part-embroidered and part-painted tapestries that includes talismanic figures harking back to The E-book of Omens displayed across the museum’s Dome Gallery. These figures subvert the concept of the mannequin minority and the great immigrant; as an alternative, Yousefzada emphasises that immigrants from Pakistan are sons of gods and jinns, that they’ve tongues and enamel and that they are often defiant. 

Right here, talking in his personal phrases, Yousefzada tells us the story behind What’s Seen and What’s Not:

“The seek for identification is kind of necessary in my work and my narrative as a result of I don’t really feel like I belong in lots of areas. I really feel like I’m not Muslim sufficient, I’m not white sufficient … I’m not many issues sufficient. Whenever you your self are a bit bit totally different, you at all times discover distinction. The area between these intersections of identification is the place I feel actually fascinating work comes out, and that’s the form of area that I trample round in. I attempt to discover these little nuances that, when amplified, can construct up a complete image, a complete identification and a complete new form of universe. With my very own follow, it’s actually about how I can reimagine and remake migrant areas by means of tapestry or printmaking or objects.

“Whenever you begin off with the exhibition, you see these defiant, talismanic figures, impressed by the Falnama and The E-book of Omens, on tapestries. They evoke a way of polytheism which can appear provocative, particularly for an intervention to do with Pakistan. However I feel typically, Pakistan doesn’t at all times bear in mind its personal historical past earlier than 1947. By beginning the exhibition off with this narrative, you might be in an area that has an infinite and shared tradition, which is basically necessary for me as a result of I grew up in a really restrictive tradition and, by means of this work, have looked for an expansive, layered tradition.

“The Falnama have been these loopy tarot playing cards that I consider as portals that might venture or attempt to think about the long run. I feel there’s a very fascinating relationship between that and migration as a result of once you go someplace, you don’t actually know what life goes to be wish to some extent, and that rupture is kind of fascinating. It was solely once I took these works to Pakistan to be developed into tapestries that they grew to become linked to the collectible figurines just like the priest-king and dancing lady of Mohenjo-Daro.

“(The wrapped objects) are a homage to migrant ladies whose tales have been hidden away. All of those ladies that I knew once I was rising up, together with my mum, created their very own areas by means of small non-public acts. My mum used to wrap all of her belongings in kapda (material) that seemed very very like South-Asian potlis. The small act of her tying a knot grew to become a method of demarcating area. My mother was illiterate, so I see these knots as her signatures and people folds as her marks.

“I feel this act stems from this home concept of placing stuff away and saving it for an additional day. These migrant ladies come from a background of restraint and a time once they had little. They don’t come from conspicuous or surplus consumption like we do as we speak. You’re preserving and accumulating stuff as you go, and it turns into the E-book of the Useless as a result of by some means you’re at all times arriving, however you’re by no means actually unpacking.”

Osman Yousefzada – What Is Seen And What Is Not is on present on the V&A in South Kensington till 25 September 2022.