The expression “alternative space” has been used since the early 1970s. It was coined by Brian O’ Doherty, a conceptual artist also known under the name of Patrick Ireland. ¹ In view, there is something deeply fascinating yet unnerving about stepping into an unconventional space, absorbing the atmosphere of a place that used to be filled with people, footsteps and conversations but now lies in obscurities. Featuring a solemn beauty with a quiet and sometimes eerie undertone, Allomorphs of an Antecedent focused on the involvement of artworks by contemporary Pakistani artists in a pop-up art show by The Roadside, in collaboration with The June Collective. Assisted by Ghazala Raees, the show featured works of renowned Pakistani artists including Laila Rahman, Mohsin Shafi, Jahanzeb Haroon, Aun Raza, Sahyr Sayed, Wajeeha Batool, Nisha Hassan, Zainab Hussain, Ayaz Jokhio, Zainab J Khawaja, Sajid khan, MALIK and Hafsa Nauman.

The exhibition took place in a commercial plaza in the center of Liberty Market, Lahore. Built in 1971, the upstairs cradled an abandoned family home and the downstairs was a storage space for shops below. From the context of alternate spaces and their role in shaping an impending narrative— and breaking away from the politics of the white cube— Ali Arshad of The Roadside, has a deciduous method of working: taking into consideration, the elements and aspects of a space in a gestalt manner. The gestalt theory allows communicators, artists and curators to predict how viewers will respond to design elements. This is based on theories of perception and explains how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In the same way, Arshad takes into account the elements and aspects of a space at first, and later forgoes the individuality of the space to detach from preceding ephemeras in order to create new remembrances.

The concept of an ideal exhibition space is comparative. Everything depends on the intentions of the artist, curator, and the space. The affiliation of their activities and ideas influences the final character of the design of the exhibition, and the space as well. Exhibition spaces have evolved from the interiors of palaces, to museums, parks, libraries, gallery spaces (white cube), and to the glorification of spaces that are anti-aesthetic in the classical sense. Post-modernism has established a new way of perception, in the context of the location while considering the interaction between all the components of the display.

Throughout the exhibition, one was faced with the textures, sounds and sights echoing from the building. Mohsin Shafi’s video was projected on the jagged and uneven cement floor. It gained subtleties from the uneven relief of the floor, thereby augmenting an inimitable structure for the black and white projection to rest on. Wajeeha Batool’s works, presented on several screens with interchanging images resonating from blank screens to films of rain falling on leaves— disappearing to reappear on another screen— served as metaphors for celebrations, and recollections of its memories. On the other hand, Hafsa Nauman’s monochromatic and imprinted archeological components on paper, outlined memory and time through the textures of grills and walls, which show signs of gradual flaking and eventual collapse.

The body of work was exhibited in two different locations, Pakistan and Turkey. According to Arshad, the idea for this came up from an earlier pop-up titled ‘Improvising Rhetorics’ that was held on August 30, 2021 in Lahore, Faisalabad and Islamabad. Arshad further states that, there is an undeniable vacuous space in which artists interact with materials and forms, the space is often coercive or complacent under the pretense of being subversive. Multiple geographies felt intuitively right. Overlapping with the one that was showcased in Konya, the sites provided a multitude of contexts for the signifier and the signified: enabling a discourse around dilapidation and abandonment, but also taking it further to reconstruct narratives through spatial realization, albeit precarious and complex in approach.

The pop-up show in Lahore corresponded with a show that took place in Konya at the same time, at a shop adjacent to the Mausoleum of Rumi. It was being filmed and documented at the Lahore venue, televised as a shared work of art. The footage showed a rainy day in Konya with projections of the shop that offered souvenirs and handicraft items. It is important to note that collaborations, across borders, can possibly generate potential audience reach, along with the strengthening of the impact of cross-cultural exchange for public engagement.

Meena, Nisha Ghani, Sahyr Sayed and Tehreem Mela’s works, as part of a video documentation presented in Konya (transforming and reforming on a day-by-day basis, for the entire length of the show), transmitted the idea of engaged spaces serving as an ongoing coalition going across borders. In The Information Age, Manuel Castells thoroughly discussed how our permanently interconnected society—the Network Society— is shaped around a logic of flows: resources, information, technology, images. For Castells this space is the new matter, setting up how our societies are made, hence the physical space stops being considered absolute and blends with the digital dimension. The space is no longer a motionless configuration but a comparatively effortless give and take connecting both Pakistan and Turkey.

Alternative spaces are places with identities that are essentially fragile in the present times. Their progressive integration with the art world, as non-profit exhibition spaces or art galleries, seems to be an evolving propensity. Unconventional architectural space, when used for the exhibition of works of art, expands and strengthens the area of its influence through the interaction between the work and the space. The specificity of the space adapted for exhibition needs, the quality of light and its distribution in space determine the exhibition environment, influencing the shape of the exhibitions organized and the reception of the artworks. The change of the original function of an architectural space into that of an exhibition space is a coherent artistic vision of the curator. Allomorphs of an Antecedent thus confirms the idea of the constantly evolving and dynamic identity of alternative spaces, an identity which is grounded on artistic, but also political and social, involvement.

‘Allomorphs of an Antecedent’ was displayed at the following venues between 17th March – 19th March 2023: –Venue #1:  21 Commercial Zone, Liberty Market, Gullberg III -building next to Waseem Jewellers. Venue #2: Mevlana Müzesi (Gulbahce acik ilan) Aziziye Mah, Esarizade sk. # 10, Konya, Turkey. 

Title image: Untitled, Sahyr Syed, 3 x 5 ft, Mixed media on Canvas 2023

Images courtesy: Mohammad Rehman, Ghazala Raees, Bia Aly and the artists at The Roadside

References

Ding, Sue. Re-enchanting spaces: location-based media, participatory documentary, and augmented reality. 2017. S.M Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Master of Science.

Castells, M. The Information Age, Volumes 1-3: Economy, Society and Culture. ‎Wiley-Blackwell, 1999.