Karachi
While crunch is a term which can cause unease among profiteers, it caused just the opposite among all artisans who gathered at the Royal Rodale Club on Sunday, to exhibit their products at an exhibition titled ‘Bohemian Crunch’. Organised by Crafter’s Guild, the exhibition was held with an aim to provide a platform to budding artists, to display their work, as well as both buyers and sellers. While some opted to make handmade products, others chose digitalised techniques to craft their products; however, the condition for all was that the work had to be original. Founder of the arts and craft venture Firefly, VarahMusavvir, said the event, albeit on a smaller scale, helped new comers get on board and build connections. “While other expos are bigger, Bohemian Crunch is for newbies, as it gives them a comfortable ground to exhibit their products. A number of artists have joined through the venture and have been introduced to the local craft community,” she said. The artist besides other products chose to kick off Firefly’s new range of herbal skin care products through the exhibition. The three halls catered to almost all kinds of art lovers, from those who were into home décor to those who followthe stationary fad aswell as those up for food and apparel. This time around, however, there were creative additions to the guild. An open stall where wooden horse and abacus stood, sold wooden toys for children - an art which has faded away owing to onslaught of plastic toys. Samia sitting at her stall explained that the products were all handmade, in Karachi. Another stall had handmade play-doh on display, for kids curiosity know no boundaries, as some of them chew away on plasticine; the stall which also had play-doh cutouts invited kids to try out thematerial as they rolled out snakes and made butterflies with it. With adult colouring books on the rise these days, a stall ‘Phuljari’ catered to the much needed stress relieving designs. Placed neatly on the table accompanied by a video-tutorial, the various designs had with interesting names such as ‘Chainak’ and ‘Kitabi Keera’,were available both individually and in a set. Speaking about the idea Ema Anis said they wanted to promote Pakistani art to make all realise that art was all around them, be it on a beautiful tea pot, because after all tea is an integral part of our lives. With more than 60 participants, majority stall-owners were women who were homes based crafters and had a huge following on social media. Given that the supplies aswell as products were available through the artists’ individual Facebook pages or these exhibits, Mateen Ansari, however, launched a separate website to bring all the artisans together. “Iwanted themto generate a sustainable income and help them through their continuous sales as well as group them together on one platform,” he said. As the exhibit ended around 8pm, the Sea Viewroad considerably had a lot of traffic, after all who knew that apart from a breezy evening city dwellers would also be craft lovers.
Organised by Crafter’s Guild, the exhibition at Royal Rodale was held with an aim to provide a platform to budding artistes
