A virtual discussion with Shahzia Sikander, Manan Ahmed Asif, and 12G’s Aisha Zia Khan
Examining through the lens of different disciplines, Twelve Gates Arts convenes three diasporic South Asian arts practitioners originally from Pakistan to ask the question: Who gets to tell the story of us?
Historian Manan Ahmed Asif, Artist Shahzia Sikander, and founder and 12G Executive Director Aisha Khan, will speak about their respective experiences (from a transnational perspective) around identifying with the label “South Asian” and draw from their individual practices to inquire about the limits and possibilities of diasporic South Asian identity/ies through Art. Q&A to follow.
Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Shahzia Sikander took up the traditional practice of miniature painting during Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime, at a time when the medium was deeply unpopular among young artists. Sikander earned a B.F.A. in 1991 from the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, where she received rigorous training from master miniaturist Bashir Ahmad, becoming his first student and artist from the miniature painting department to challenge the medium’s technical and aesthetic framework. Sikander’s breakthrough work, The Scroll, 1989–90, received national critical acclaim in Pakistan, winning the prestigious Shakir Ali Award, the NCA’s highest merit award, and the Haji Sharif award for excellence in miniature painting. Sikander started teaching miniature painting at NCA in 1992, alongside Bashir Ahmad. Her work launched what is now globally called neo-miniature into the forefront of NCA’s program in the early 90s, encouraging students on the sidelines weary about prejudices around craft-based work to engage miniature painting with experimentation. In the mid - late 90s Sikander's work in the international arena brought recognition to this medium within contemporary art practices across the world for which she received the MacArthur award in 2006.
Manan Ahmed, Associate Professor, is a historian of South Asia and the littoral western Indian Ocean world from 1000-1800 CE. His areas of specialization include intellectual history in South and Southeast Asia; critical philosophy of history, colonial and anti-colonial thought. He is interested in how modern and pre-modern historical narratives create understandings of places, communities, and intellectual genealogies for their readers.