The Lahore Biennale Foundation (LBF) announces Of Mountains and Seas, the third edition of the Biennale, curated by John Tain. LB03 builds on the success of the inaugural Lahore Biennale in March 2018 and the second edition in early 2020, curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, by showcasing groundbreaking contemporary art from around the world centred on the themes of ecologies and sustainable futures. Of Mountains and Seas showcases the convergence of art, environmental awareness, and global collaboration to help imagine alternative futures.
The Biennale invites some sixty artists from over thirty countries to present an array of site-specific exhibits and immersive installations that draw attention to issues caused by environmental degradation, along with illuminating vernacular and indigenous heritage as transformative resources for future sustainability. It explores these themes from the perspectives of Pakistan and the Global South more broadly.
The Lahore Biennale has become a noteworthy platform for contemporary art in the region, showcasing artworks from a range of disciplines and media. The previous editions and on-going projects highlight the Lahore Biennale Foundation’s commitment to promoting cultural exchange, inclusivity, and accessibility through the arts.
Qudsia Rahim, Executive Director of LBF notes, “As a public-facing organisation, the Lahore Biennale Foundation is committed to creating sustained and meaningful cultural programming.” Rahim further added; “Given the relative scarcity of regional dialogues within South Asia, the Biennale aims to foster a deeper and multifaceted exchange within Asia and the rest of the world and to contribute to a shared and sustainable future. At the same time, the city of Lahore becomes a wonderful catalyst for engaging local audiences with contemporary art and incorporating regional artists into the global art scene”.
Exhibition artworks, many of them new commissions, will be featured across a dozen venues across the city, including UNESCO World Heritage sites: the Lahore Fort in the Walled City that also featured spectacular installations in the first two editions; and the Shalimar Gardens, a treasure of Islamic garden design and hydrology that will be showcased for the first time for the Biennale.
John Tain, Curator of Lahore Biennale (LB03) states, “By placing historic sites in dialogue with more contemporary works, LB03 brings to light the ways the city’s celebrated culture, architecture, and gardens, generally understood to symbolise its palimpsest of connections to Asia and Europe through trade routes and the migration of people and knowledge, also connects with more recent conversations about the significance of historical and indigenous forms of knowledge and practices as necessary alternatives to the extractivism that plague modern societies. Evidence of these local and vernacular forms can be abundantly found everywhere in the architecture, art, cosmology, cuisine, and literature, as well as in the diversity of its inhabitants – people whose relation to local and regional ecosystems have been fine-tuned over millennia of cohabitation and adaptation”.
Raza Ali Dada, Lead Architect & Sceneographer for LB03 observes, “LBF prioritises the city and its urban spaces when planning the spatial design of its exhibitions and projects. The rediscovery and reappropriation of these locations are crucial means of public engagement and have initiated new and regenerative projects across Lahore. The approach to designing exhibitions and installations is deeply rooted in honouring the artists’ visions and ensuring that designs are simple and sensitive to sustainability concerns.”
LB03 will install ambitious works of contemporary art throughout cultural heritage sites across the city, including:
● Lahore Fort and Shalimar Gardens, both UNESCO World Heritage Sites, are masterpieces from the Mughal era, which reached its splendour during the reign of Emperor Shah Jahan (1628-1658). The Fort contains marble palaces and mosques decorated with mosaics, and terraces with lodges, waterfalls and large ornamental ponds. The Shalimar Gardens were built to symbolise a Persian paradise garden envisioned to create a representation of an earthly utopia in which humans live in perfect harmony with all elements of nature.
● Lahore Museum is an important example of Indo-Saracenic architecture constructed under British rule. It holds the country’s largest and oldest collection of historical, cultural and artistic objects.
● Pak Tea House, located on the historic Mall Road near the Lahore Museum and many educational institutes, is a restaurant known for its association with progressive academics and left-leaning South Asian intelligentsia, and noted for being the birthplace of the influential Progressive Writers’ Association.
● Bradlaugh Hall, built in the 19th century on Rattigan Road, is a symbol of revolution against the British occupation of Indian subcontinent, as it served as the epicentre of organised resistance against colonial rule in Lahore.
● The YMCA building is a testament to the identity of Lahore as a city of poets, artists, and visionaries. The building was commemorated to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887 and is a significant part of the colonial narrative of Lahore. Since the time of Queen Victoria to the Partition and the modern era of Pakistan, the YMCA has been a symbol of inclusivity that recognizes individuals without regard for race or religion.
● Nasir Bagh, a historic landmark situated across town hall and traditionally known as Gol Bagh, holds a unique place in Lahore’s history. After the Partition in 1947, it was renamed Nasir Bagh after Jamal Abdul Nasir of Egypt. Through time, this park has been a host to some of the nation’s most consequential socio-political events that have left an indelible mark on Pakistan’s history.
LB03’s gathering of artists from South and Southeast Asia and beyond thus addresses urgent topics in a region that in recent years has seen calamitous floods and degraded environment aggravated by agricultural disasters, urban pollution, and social inequality. These problems, which now cannot be ignored, have long been in gestation. The exhibition will feature contributions by artists that suggest aesthetic, sensorial, conceptual, and collective ways to address such challenges, while also underscoring resonances between the histories of Lahore and Pakistan, with other parts of the world that face similar issues.
John Tain notes, “By positioning Lahore as a strategic location for global efforts to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis, LB03 signals the need to shift agency for environmental discourse to the very societies that will be most affected”.
Free and open to the public, the Biennale commences on Saturday, 5th October, and will run through Friday, 8th November, complemented by a number of collateral exhibitions and programs scattered all over the city. During the opening weekend (5th – 7th October), in addition to experiencing the Biennale and other shows, visitors will have the opportunity to partake in a number of special events, including private collection viewings, studio visits, artist talks and programs, live performances, and other cultural events (such as heritage and culinary tours) across the city. The guests will be able to fully enjoy Lahore’s famous hospitality.
For its closing program (2nd – 8th November), the Biennale builds on the solidarity of these parallels by convening a mix of leading and emerging researchers, artists, curators, and other practitioners for the Climate Congress, which under the stewardship of Iftikhar Dadi and John Tain, offers an occasion for South-South conversations around the role of the arts and humanities to meaningfully contribute to wider efforts to build. The Climate Congress is supported by a grant from the Getty Foundation.
Researchers and artists from over 42 countries and numerous institutions will participate in the Climate Congress. They include participants from Cornell University, Harvard University, University of California-Berkeley, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA NYC), among others.
In resonance with the Lahore Biennale, many local institutions, such as Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Kinnaird College, National College of Arts (NCA), Beaconhouse National University (BNU), Punjab University, and COMSATS University, amongst others, will also conduct collateral programming within their campuses.
Press release from the Lahore Biennale Foundation
Image: Lahore Fort. Image courtesy of the Lahore Biennale Foundation
