Hamra Abbas delves on this distinction between sacredness and commodity in her latest work
Belief has always been a part of image-making. Throughout the history of mankind, one cannot detach art from religion. A professor of art history may sound like a spiritual scholar because, from the period of great civilizations -- Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, Greece -- to the age of Modernism, image-makers have been occupied with representing the divine. Through human body, symbols, script or geometry, art was a means to realise and relive the religious experience.
Like many others, Hamra Abbas is dealing with religion in its contemporary context. She is inquiring about its presence and impact on transforming the globe, especially after 9/11.
The structure of religion, its effects on a society and system of thought appear to be Abbas’ concerns. But she does not dismiss or embrace fashionable narratives about faith. Instead, she combines the significance of religion in our lives with other aspects of culture. One cannot disconnect extremism and fanaticism from political and economic factors. Many thinkers locate the roots of the present religious fervour in the alienation and humiliation of individuals in the face of Western political and economic dominance. Religion offers a point of identity and independence in comparison with the hegemonic West.
In the present context, religion as an international problem is invariably linked with Muslim militancy.
Hamra Abbas in her new work (which was part of her recently concluded solo exhibition ‘Bodies’, held at Lawrie Shabibi Gallery, Dubai from Sept 18-Nov 10, 2016,) focuses on the growing fascination for faith. In the past, she had created a series Zof prints based on the colour separations of Kaa’ba, a work which can be considered a landmark in the aesthetics of contemporary art from Pakistan, due to its simplicity and subtlety.
More than merely commenting on the religious fervour, Abbas draws a larger map in which belief substitutes and satiates unfulfilled desires. She also delineates the way a culture is captivated with its pictorial manifestations, customs, and rituals. For instance, in one of her work a prayer bead is hung with plastic flowers (the entire work is fabricated in wood!). Or in ‘One Rug, Any Color’ the prayer mat is printed in 12 shades while depicting the Kaa’ba in the middle along with the Arabic inscription ‘Made in Egypt’.
Both of these works allude to the way religion and commerce converge. Every pilgrim who returns from Hajj brings rosaries and rugs which are revered by ardent believers being the relics of the holy sites. But in reality all of these sacred items are manufactured in Egypt, Morocco, Malaysia or China. Abbas reminds us of the relation between ritualistic gatherings and commercial fairs which were popular before the advent of Islam. Prior to the period of Holy Prophet pbuh, Kaa’ba was the centre of annual fair in which various artisans displayed their goods. Likewise, the House of God was used for hanging the latest pieces of poetry (Al-Mua’llaqat).
The connection between trade and belief, which was witnessed during the annual gatherings at Mecca before Islam, somehow still continues in the form of souvenirs produced in other countries.
Hamra Abbas delves on this distinction between sacredness and commodity, by incorporating symbols of religion in other areas too. Accumulation of colourful minarets, playing balls, and a large Kaa’ba model with designs on four sides, from her work ‘Barkah Gift II’ indicates how these objects which survive between the unmistakable boundary of playfulness, kitsch and religious importance can be combined in a composition which refers to diverse and conflicting approaches towards relics, toys and decorative objects.
In her other works from the exhibition, Abbas presents a set of footwear balanced on top of each other, all constructed in wood yet looking like plastic, rubber or leather goods. Piling up of these sandals, which is a normal sight at any mosque or shrine in Pakistan, also alludes to the extermination of Jews by Nazis, in which their clothes and shoes survived. We are also revisiting those atrocious times, because after every bomb blast what remains are pairs of shoes put away before entering a scared space or a place of worship.
These footwear fixed on top of each other suggest how an ordinary person leaves his touch with the ground (being dirty, by taking his shoes off) in order to enter the realm of the sacred and sublime. Abbas comments upon this religious zeal with its ‘required’ offering through her work that deals with the banality of our ordinary lives with the supreme sense and need of religious rituals; like the spread of cooked rice in her ‘Sweet and Savory’, and her digital photographs of "two small piles of rice left on a security barrier at the entrance of Data Darbar".
The spilling of edible stuff, abandoned by the crowd rushing to the shrine of Data Darbar, in a way reminds of what is left out of human life in the form of shoes, beads, flower garlands. But the work of Hamra Abbas is not restricted to one aspect of human existence, misery or fate; it shows the way society is transformed into a group of people who are in the grip of religious zeal, and how its residue turns into articles of their utmost longing.
Like an artist who is not confined to a territory, nationality and belief, Abbas analyses the current satiation of our culture, in which emblems of faith are more important than elements of faith. It’s a world shaped by market economy and media hype. In that sense, her work investigates and invites a new understanding of religion and society because, like the images from Cave painting to Renaissance period, there is constant contact between the two, a relationship that is often pleasant or painful, but perpetual and permanent nonetheless.