In a sense, Dubai could be called the capital of South Asia. From the time of landing at the airport to reaching the immigration desk to renting a cab to the hotel to the shops in the malls, the language of communication for a South Asian is Bollywurdu or Bollywindi!

It provides an opportunity for artists, curators, critics and collectors from South Asian countries to meet at their annual pilgrimage to Art Dubai. At the 10th edition of the art fair held from March 16-19, 2016, a number of galleries showcased works of artists from the region. Even though the fair is known for its quantitative and qualitative representation of art from the Middle East and around the world, it is also recognised and admired for its inclusion of Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan artists.

Another aspect that makes Art Dubai important and essential is its location at a neutral territory. Devoid of any issues of visas, police reporting and intelligence agencies tracking travellers, Dubai has become a hub for all those who live next door to meet every year at a common ground. And also to view works that are produced in the neighbourhood but cannot be sent or seen within the region, except in the ‘capital’ Dubai.

During the recently-concluded Art Dubai 2016, a number of new and exciting works were displayed at the ‘Contemporary’ section, while ‘Art Modern’ presented "artists whose works have proven highly influential during the twentieth century, and on later generations of artists". However, looking at these artworks in gallery after gallery, and booth after booth, one starts to get a sense of deja vu because most of them remind one of artists of European origin.

At the Contemporary part of Art Dubai, one realised how art transcends territories. So a viewer may have recognised the gender and origin of an artist by reading labels of exhibits but, by and large, the works did not signify any national or ethical connections. Most of them converse in the idiom of global contemporary art, albeit with a bit of regional accent. Perhaps the mark of this transnationalism was evident where one could see works of a Pakistani painter next to artists from Croatia, Australia, India and Germany.

The presence of artists from Pakistan and India is indeed impressive. At the Aicon Gallery, along with Anil Revri and Avishek, one saw works of Adeela Suleman, Anila Qayyom Agha and Abdullah M.I. Syed. Likewise at Jhaveri Contemporary, works of Rana Begum, Iftikhar & Elizabeth Dadi, Simryn Gill, Alexander Gorlizki, Ali Kazim, Prem Sahib and Anwar Jalal Shemza were exhibited. At Aicon, one could see how Adeela Suleman appropriates references from the history of image-making and local craft in order to create works that deal with violence, its presence and potential in our times. Iftikhar and Elizabeth Dadi have focused on the language of popular culture, from film as well as objects of mass consumptions, which investigate the power and place of media in the lives of ordinary people. An isolated film frame (one amongst hundreds in a sequence/scene) for instance, appears full of meanings, once it is presented as a unique representation/reflection of reality.

Reality was probed by Atul Dodiya at the Galerie Daniel Templon. Here, one could see canvases invoking historical moments and truths of South Asia, which exist like stock visuals in our collective memory. These refer to crucial events such as Salt March and conferences to negotiate the freedom of India. Dodiya has ruptured these truths, symbolically and literally, by adding a fully-loaded brush stroke on these pictures from the past.

History -- not as a dogma but as a common experience -- was treated in the wood-cut prints of Zarina Hashmi (shown at two spaces: Sakshi Gallery and Jeanne Bucher Jaeger). By using a simple and minimal tone, she has offered her versions of old proverbs. Translating texts, which accompany each image, into basic shapes was a means to realise the difference and distance between two modes of expressions, and highlight the fact that one entity can never substitute for another. Her imagery reminded of an age in which time was suspended due to its repetition -- before the advent of industrialisation in our part of the world.

Issues such as time, heritage, urbanity and political turmoil were visible in the works of Risham Syed at Project 88. Represented with a large number of works at Art Dubai, Syed seems to be moving into a direction that she has already explored in her last exhibition at Canvas Gallery in Karachi. Instead of making single paintings, she has created combination of canvases and other objects to communicate her ideas, which deal with violence that occurs not only due to political conditions but on several other levels too. Turbulent scenario of a city turning into a jungle of concrete and steel which dominates human element, presence and needs could be detected in her art.

Amidst all the euphoria of a so-called development that is basically for a privileged (owners of personal cars) class but not for pedestrians, Risham recalls lost times without succumbing to nostalgia. In her work, one could decipher how the social situation is a stage on which history performs its task beyond anyone’s desire or control. Small views of houses in Lahore, pictures of fire and smoke caused by weapons or other means are painted as if replicating classical aesthetics. All these canvases are composed with different objects which helps build a narrative that nothing is lost, even if it is eradicated with the passage of time, since it exists in memory, recollections and art.

The loss of another kind was reclaimed by Basir Mahmood, in one of his works, Sketch for Missing Letters, shortlisted for the Abraaj Group Art Prize. A line of ashes on the floor, mass that resembles human remains, is the residue of lost letters burnt at the Lahore’s General Post Office. The ashes on the ground reassert that these grey particles may have contained words of love, secret messages, crucial contents and urgent requests, all gone because of a slight mistake in address, negligence in delivery or change of location etc.

Mahmood’s work, an engaging image due to its funerary resonance reminds and reaffirms that not only us but our creations would be extinguished with the passage of time. So all art, words on art, and discussion on art may come to an end that is not different from the dark dust that can be blown away with your breath, hand, feet or any other cleaning tool.