Dr. Sadia Pasha Kamran, Professor & Coordinator School of Art represented the Institute for Art & Culture (IAC), Lahore at the international Islamabad Art Festival IAF-19. Her project, a curated show, titled The Eighth Garden got accepted by the IAF-19 committee that included eminent national & international academics and curators as the jury.
A 13-day long event, the IAF-19 is claimed to be the biggest ever art festival in Pakistan and was kicked off on Monday 18 November at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) and will showcase all forms of art till its closing ceremony on November 30, 2019. ‘The Eighth Garden’, presents the work of 12 artists from Pakistan and abroad working in conventional and traditional mediums to address contemporary and modern concerns as well as aesthetic issues. The exhibition is put up in Gallery 2, PNCA, Islamabad. Professor Sadia said that the journey of measuring the progression from traditional to modern becomes easier through conventional mediums and conformist attitudes. As the ideas like ‘art for art sake’ and art as an ‘individual expression’ recoil, more artists focus on the age-old function of art as an object of beauty and or truth.
Assistant Professor Mehwish Abid at the School of Architecture, Design and Urbanism (SADU), IAC, is also one of the artists selected for the group show opening 21 November, 2019, at the COMSATS art Gallery in Islamabad. The show named, EX (IT) – My traditions versus your modernity, has been curated by Farrah Mehmood as part of the IAF-19. The participants will enjoy and experience a diverse range of interactive and immersive projects by a versatile group of architects, artists and designers at the show.
The festival has been organized by a consortium of public and private educational institutions, art galleries and artist associations from across Pakistan, and is a collaborative project that will be hosted in several locations in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, including museums, art galleries, educational institutes and public parks.
The aim of the festival is to celebrate diversity and creativity in all forms of visual and performing art. The spirit of creativity brings people together and strengthens society as a whole.
