Islamabad : The famous ‘Art for Climate Change’ exhibition, which was inaugurated by President Arif Alvi at the National Art Gallery a few months ago, reopened at Gallery6, with Spanish Ambassador Manuel Duran as the chief guest.
The exhibition demonstrates the seriousness with which Gallery6 is pursuing its ‘Art for Social Change’ movement, wherein it is utilising all possible means of communication to reach out to the public with messages that have the potential to alter and shape our future.
Pakistan is one of the top-ten most vulnerable countries with respect to climate change; its effects are being experienced in the form of extreme temperatures, flash floods, droughts, land degradation, climate migration and water stresses. The situation requires actions in multiple spheres.
Taking up the challenge, Gallery6 it invited artists, photographers, a film maker and a journalist to travel together and observe the effects of climate change and environmental degradation in Northern Pakistan. This was done to facilitate development of paintings, photographs, sculptures, documentaries, and blogs on climate change and other environmental issues.
The artworks on display highlight several issues. Photographer Amna Yaseen has used the double exposure technique to draw attention towards deforestation, invasion of open spaces, excessive consumption of fossil fuel, and land erosion. Artist Irfan Gul Dahri’s paintings point out that we may have learnt to make money and turn every bit of this world into gold, but we also need to evolve to save our world from the damages we are incurring. Sana Arjumand’s paintings show how greed is changing the landscapes, forcing even birds to migrate.
Kiran Saleem, Fakhra Asif and S. M. Khayyam have drawn attention towards spread of garbage. Many areas, which are still beautiful for tourists are being haphazardly loaded with garbage by visitors. During travel to scenic sites, the artists observed tourists carrying a lot of plastic materials (water/soda bottles, wrappers of chips and biscuits, shopping bags, etc.) that are neither biodegradable nor environment-friendly. Their work is a comment on how nature, with the passage of time and with the pressure of increasing ignorant population, is being invaded.
Asad Asghar and Muhammad Sajjad Akram have highlighted the increasing use of wood and paper respectively in our daily life, resulting in extensive cutting of trees. Asad has developed posters with the slogan ‘Stop killing yourself, Stop cutting trees.’ A related poster campaign ‘Plant for me’ has been developed by Dr. Arjumand Faisel in which children are demanding viewers to plant for their future. The ‘Plant for me’ campaign can be picked by the Ministry of Climate Change, national or regional institutions and stakeholders, NGOs or community-based organizations to promote tree plantations at different levels. Dr. Faisel has also done paintings highlighting threats to trout fish.
Sujjal Kiani has two posters and three sculptures that remarkably hit the viewer about the massive water crisis. Muhammad Sajjad Akram’s sculpture of a devastated man sums up the effects of climate change on humans—the sufferings.
Landscape paintings by Ajab Khan, Muhammad Tariq, Abid Khan and Muhammad Arshad and photographer Ambassador (r) Tariq Zameer challenge the viewer and create an urge to act for preserving our landscapes and environment. Though a majority of the artworks brings attention to ongoing damages to the environment and climate through human acts, it also provides hope with poster campaigns and paintings such as those by Jamil Baloch (Hope 1 and Hope II) that show how small efforts at an individual level can bring positive changes. The film recording the process of the retreat and environmental damages in Norther Areas made by Ali Ijaz is also very captivating.
The exhibition is a commendable effort of Gallery6, the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation, the Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change and the Snow Leopard Foundation that funded the art retreat. It will continue till February 22.