The human urge for storytelling has existed as long as recorded history (or perhaps it prompted the need for the latter),  and though it takes on different forms and flavors depending on location, culture and time, its need transcends such boundaries. Storytelling serves social, psychological, and evolutionary purposes¾ allowing for humans to connect with one another, make sense of the world and of life, and construct a moral, ethical and spiritual framework and value systems within which to conduct themselves. For example, the Native American Choctaw has oral traditions through which animal fables were passed down over generations, the purpose of which was to convey warnings and lessons, a survival tactic that we still see in the form of proverbs and idioms and stories with moral lessons. ¹

The earliest form of a written story is the Sumerian’s The Epic of Gilgamesh, written in Akkadian on stone tablets and dated around 1300-1000 B.C, an old Babylonian version of which dates even further back. ² It is a form of religious text as well as hero epic, the purpose of which again seems to be social cohesion through shared values and beliefs, and a need to make sense of the world by understanding our own origins, and our place in this world. However, evidence of storytelling in a broader sense dates back even further, in the form of visual imagery in prehistoric cave paintings which are adorned by a scene of a hunt. What must have compelled our paleolithic ancestors to create images of animals and hybrid humans on the walls of these caves? What evolutionary imperative was at play? Perhaps a need to leave a record of their own existence? Or to document their traditions and accomplishments? Again, it seems to be a need to connect with one another, and to be witnessed by others and perhaps survive as a species beyond mortal years. As the centuries passed, this evolved into creating culture and shared knowledge, histories and organized religion, stories being told in both visual and textual form, the deeper purpose remaining the same; creating meaning, and understanding our purpose in life. A powerful narrative can become the mechanism through which we can understand deep truths about ourselves and those around us, our lives and our world, more than any other mode of knowledge insemination.

Ammara Jabbar’s latest solo presentation at IVS Gallery titled Heiress of None revels in the mechanism of storytelling, using it as a medium and a tool in her mechanical sculptures and installations. The works use a whimsical tone to construct its narrative and veil deeper socio-political themes. She says in her artist statement, “Allegory serves as the conduit to engage with themes surrounding female autonomy, virtue and desire. Furthermore, aesthetics serve as a tool that allows for a more evocative narration, one that carries its own cultural and ritualistic connotations.” ³  Thus, storytelling in her work also becomes a means of understanding and expressing truths about herself and her place in the world she inhabits. However, this is done not just through visual works, but also a small collection of poems included in the e-catalogue. Interspersed in between images of the artworks with alternative compositional choices, they seem to compliment and correlate with each other, speaking in a distinct language, yet adopting similar styles. The artist statement itself is an elusive poetic monologue about a song that was spontaneously revealed to the artist, but which cannot be fully experienced through sound and rhythm alone. It unfurls in her work as a story, which may not be fully apparent to the viewer. “I must confess though I know all of its secrets, but if I told you it would stop being so, after all a story is a magnificent way to lie…” ⁴ she says.

Her writings are highly sensorial and dream-like, reveling in playful linguistic manipulation, leaving it semantically vague and thus opening it up to myriad interpretations. It creates a phonetic symphony of fantastical occurrences, surrealist scenes held together through rhymes and limericks.

Upon my inquiry, and confession to my lack of familiarity with the genre of poetry, the artist seemed almost dismissive of the prose, which to me was a point of confusion; if it is irrelevant to the body of work, then why include it at all? Certainly, if the text is arranged alongside alternate presentations of the work, the catalogue can be considered an independent compilation, opening up the work to new contextual interpretations. This initiated a lengthy inquiry into the link between poetry and visual art; what purpose does text and prose serve in an artistic practice, how one inspires the other and influences its reading, how they exist as dual practices and where they intersect within the same practice.

Visual art and poetry have had a longstanding connection; both different forms of expression fulfilling different artistic and narrative purposes, yet also inexplicably interlinked, with the ability to overlap and work in tandem to further the narrative. Countless artists and works of art throughout history have been inspired by the written word¾ many works from classical European art depict scenes from the Bible, or from famous literary works.

Ghalib and Iqbal’s poetry has inspired countless artists, old Masters, Modernists and contemporaries alike, the philosophical references making their way into Chughtai’s Muraqqa-i Chughtai (1928), and Sadequains Evolution of Mankind on the ceiling of the Lahore Museum. ⁵ These poetic references are also present in works of artists like Shakir Ali, Meher Afroz, Shah Abdullah Alamee, and many others.

There are also many who themselves maintain dual practices of writing and art, at times only subconsciously related, at other times supporting each other to create a more rounded artistic practice. Aasim Akhtar elaborates on the co-existence of art and writing, talking about the seamless interflow in “the long poem or the suite of paintings” of Raja Changez Sultan’s The Himalayan Odyssey, and how “Ram Kumar, the painter, has overshadowed Ram Kumar, the storyteller, yet he is an important writer in his own right” with both mediums maintaining their own distinct style. ⁶ Other writers and artists known for their dual expressions include William S. Burroughs, Herman Hesse, Sylvia Plath, William Blake, Khalil Gibran, Anwar Maqsood, Rasheed Araeen, and Tassadaq Sohail.

Yet, these artists kept both their writing and artistic practices distinct, not allowing them to intersect, the way artists like Sadia Salim with the body of work titled The Lost River and The Rising Sea, Ayesha Jatoi’s Mirror Mirror and Fazal Rizvi’s typewritten art books, all of which include the written piece as part of the artwork, either as an addendum that gives the work another dimension, or as necessary component without which the work would be incomplete.

However, it is a specific, little known work by Picasso that I found most pertinent to this discussion. According to Androula Micheal, “Writing gave [Picasso] new ‘answers’ to older concerns” ⁷ The Dream and Lie of Franco (1937) is a folder consisting of two etchings divided into nine sections in the visual presentation of a comic strip or Spanish alleluia, accompanied by a very aggressively expressive poem. The work satirized the claim by Spanish Generalissimo Francisco Franco to conserve conservative Spanish culture and values. One can sense a blind rage behind the artwork and the prose, thinly veiled in limerick. According to critic and author John Golding, “more than any other work by Picasso, Dream and Lie of Franco breaks down, as the Surrealists so passionately longed to, distinctions between thought, writing and visual imagery.” ⁸

Many parallels can be drawn with Jabbar’s use of prose and this work by Picasso. Jabbar is interested in the genre of magical realism¾ a close neighbor of Surrealism¾ through which both visual and poetry operate, thus giving both a similar style with some distinct notes. However, where Picasso’ narrative is blatantly political, Jabbar veils her socio-political narrative in limerick and parables and a fantastically eccentric atmosphere.

Furthermore, while in Picasso’s work the text and visuals work in unison, creating a more palpable message, Jabbar’s works can stand on their own, the prose perhaps adding a dimension to its reading, acting as intellectual embellishment for a more profound experience. One then questions the need for its inclusion. According to the artist, each genres fills gaps left by the other, working cohesively to tell the same story, and since the prose exists only in the catalogue it can be seen as a way of creating a more coherent narrative from disjointed bits and pieces and more fully experiencing the work.

Along with magical realism, the sculptural works further employ elements of kitsch, pop art (especially Karachi Pop of the 90s), and cultural grounding woven into the visual compositions. This translates to everyday household objects and vintage decorative items, cheap, easily available and generic objects that slip into the backdrop of our lives. While pop art exalts these everyday objects as is, here they are transformed, mundanity purged into the realm of the fantastical. These objects come together along with painting and mechanical elements in a disjointed moment to tell a bizarre story.

This sense of fragmented rambling is mirrored in her literary pieces as well, which piles metaphor upon metaphor, creating some semblance of a meaningful narrative upon deeper contemplation. According to Jabbar, this is how she thinks, which spills into her composition building, creating a sense of quiet chaos and absurdity. “It is very much disjointed and, in a way, subverting the idea of traditional storytelling with a beginning medium and climax, because that is not how you view art. Works of magical realism always have a displaced sense of time. There is excessive detail and sometimes you don’t get to the point at all. So, when I talk about using storytelling it is more about using the devices of storytelling as a medium.”

For Jabbar the household appliances and décor represent women’s emancipation and mobility through the mechanization of the home, easing our workload and making it possible for us to enter into society and the workforce with greater ease. The use of home appliances as noise instruments is an ongoing point of inquiry in Jabbar’s practice, subverting the ways in which we are used to seeing these gadgets and correlating sound with ritual, which is further accentuated through the use of elements of pop art and kitsch. “Aesthetics is a crucial point of engagement, especially Kitch as an aesthetic, found in shrines and spaces of worship. Extracting that visual culture and pasting it onto the work, does that lend a sacred nature?” Jabbar questions. ⁹

This is highly apparent in works like Ballad of the Bitter Balding Man (2024) which appears as a shrine to the titular balding man, complete with flashy golden streamers, flower garlands and offerings of fruit and cash. A painted nude caricature portrait of the man is featured on the pedestal, with his hand in the mouth of a fish, a symbol of desire for the artist. The structure itself seems like a watermelon forced open and within the red ‘meat’ is a gruesome sight of a squirming hidden phallic shape created with a dildo. The poem of the same title is also featured alongside the work, the only poem to make it to the gallery display, and together use satire to talk about the quintessential male in our society, treated like a saint, fulfilling base desires and given the world on a platter, only to take and take and inflict wicked atrocities in return.

Similarly, Wishing Machine (2024), which is again a play on pirs and mazaar culture, many of which are scams and sell false promises in the form of the taweez (amulet) and charms. The title becomes a play on wishing well and washing machine, turning the machine into a kind of shrine, currency notes hanging about, frilly sparkling net fabric adorning the structure, and a gong fashioned from a cooking utensil ringing to gather attention.

This piece draws connections with a video work Miss-Fortune Seller (2024), presenting the same concept of selling false promises. Many of the little details in the work come from the story of the miss-fortune seller who steals a piece of the sky for herself when it is taken off its hinges to be washed. She fashions a blue dress out of it and drapes it upon herself, lies across water bodies and tells the fish to swim upon her so they can fly. But when they do, they die, because it is a farse. This surreal narrative becomes an apt metaphor for such scams, playing on our desires to trick us into a bitter end. The story gives a keen insight into how the artist constructs her imagery from snippets of ideas coming together like visual poetry, from the sky hanging to dry on a line behind a washing machine, to the dead fish, representing death of our desires, at the base of the sculpture upon blue satin. A lot of these works, but this one in particular with its peculiar backstory, are reminiscent of the allegorical narrative building in the works of Bani Abidi, with her odd scenarios and eccentric characters concealing socio-political commentary within intricate symbolic details.

The mechanical elements create repetitive movement and sound which add to the peculiarity of the scene. To me, the movement in an instant makes the sculptures provocative, with a touch of insolence, as seen in works like Ballad of the Bitter Balding Man and Perhaps for That (2024). The artist talks about the initial idea for the latter, a large set of lips with an embroidered fabric tongue that wags itself when activated, overlooking stuffed fabric fish and a flashy heart comprised of Mashooka Supari wrappers, and how it came out of feeling particularly vulnerable in a certain part of the city. Women’s mobility in public spaces is greatly hindered by the male gaze, generating a sense of vulnerability, discomfort, violation and trauma. These lewd movements then subvert this idea through its bold defiance, which allow the artist to reclaim herself with a tongue-in-cheek presentation, and instead instill these emotions in the viewer as they experience the work.

In the catalogue the image of this work follows the poem Tiniest Girl in the World, about a wicked girl who has much to say but so as not to collect the ire of the world she keeps her tongue in her rear “For a tongue left to speak astray invites the wicked to play.” She suppresses her whims until she becomes the tiniest girl in the world. She then sings to call the ‘crooked ones’ to sit with her. The poem ends with her spilling out her ‘city of words’, making her lighter and freeing her to float up to the edge of the sky.

This poem is very telling, and correlates to the works that follow, in its themes of subverting repressive norms and reclaiming yourself, as well as the artists obvious refuge in artistic expression as a means of freeing herself from the shackles of societal pressures, expectations and repression. It also ties into the idea behind an interactive piece on display but not included in the catalogue which was presented as a certificate of good behavior for the artist, with a button that activated the aforementioned sculptures. Good behavior was previously associated with being shy and holding back, fitting into the skewed molds of society. Now she reclaims the term, believing herself to be truly worthy of the title of the ‘good girl’ for expressing herself.

Thus, the prose in Jabbar’s work becomes an essential part of experiencing the work to the fullest and understanding its depths. And perhaps through this act of storytelling the artist can also better understand the world and herself. Storytelling through these forms of human expression, picking intricate narratives from everyday life and painting peculiar scenarios that reveal deeper truths about human existence, serve the process of meaning-making.  “The self – the idea that we have an identity that is distinct and consistent across time – emerges out of the storytelling powers” ¹⁰

Many of her poems speak of loss, grief, hope, repression, letting go, themes that are personal, confessional, introspective and rooted in her own past experiences. The psychiatrist Viktor Frankl argued that humans are driven by a ‘will to meaning’, and through this narrativization of our lives, it is possible for us to create a sense of self and through it, meaning in our lives. By giving it a beginning, a middle and a possible ending, we are able to realize our purpose and chart a possible course of action for the future, giving us agency over our own paths.

Heiress of None, a solo presentation of Ammara Jabbar, was exhibited at IVS Gallery, from May 9, 2024 till May 23, 2024.

Title Image: Gallery view of Heiress of None. Image courtesy: IVS Gallery

Images courtesy and copyright @Ammara Jabbar