fixation: farida batool

I'm spellbound.

In Farida Batool’s photographs, lenticular prints (the image changes with the viewing angle) become a metaphor for complex political realities. In Nai Reesan Shehr Lahore Diyan (There Is No Match of the City Lahore) a girl skips rope in front of burned-out buildings — the aftermath of arsons committed by religious extremists.

Farida's image of a Pakistani girl is becoming iconic. The young woman looks as if she captures or typifies some cross between the ordinary and the divine, the ruin and the ritual. The piece partakes of Farida's commitment to the vernacular and to dialogue between the religious and the secular, between the personal and the city. (Monroe Price, Huffington Post)

Batool's image represents a side of Pakistan and its culture that rarely makes it into the American press. Nai Reesan Shehr Lahore Diyan was most recently on view in an exhibit at New York's Aicon Gallery. It closed January 11 (bah!).



This post serves as a virtual birthday greeting to one of the most glorious bloggeuses in all the land: our darling P. Miss WPM's fierce intelligence and kind heart are but two of her many gifts, not to mention her generosity of spirit. And P loves all things South Asia — this one's for you, P. Happiest of Days.




:image courtesy of farida batool and aicon gallery