The South Asian perspective of womanhood is an almost clandestine lived experience that is challenging to narrate to those who have not witnessed it first-hand. Although unity can be found in the universal female struggle of women worldwide, the nuances of being a woman in South Asia comes with intricate generational narratives that have only just begun to be evaluated from a critical lens in the recent past.

Curator Salima Hashmi is no stranger to such narratives. Her oeuvre as an art historian of Pakistani origin traces the many feminist perspectives of art in Pakistan, providing a detailed record of practicing women artists in a discipline that has so often erased women as active participants in history. Her book Unveiling the Visible–Lives and Works of Women Artists of Pakistan (2002) did just that— recording the prominent women artists of Pakistan, while also creating a living archive of the female experience in South Asia. As a curator, her practice follows the same themes.

With the socio-political environment of Pakistan being so heavily rooted within religion and nationalism, the ideals of womanhood are buried deep under the burden of subservience and servitude. In curating an exhibition of works by four women artists of South Asian origin titled Narrators of Dissonance, Hashmi claims the work “quietly seethes with dissent and a denial of subservience.” ⁴ Nida Bangash, Ruby Chishti, Aisha Abid Hussain, and Sania Samad use a multitude of mediums and materials that carry undertones of rebellion against traditional patriarchal ideologies, particularly those found in Pakistan.

As a research-based artist, Aisha Abid Hussain works in “archival mode”, using the aesthetic treatment of historical documents as an artistic medium. Her series of mixed media works adeptly utilize washes of watercolour, ink, and collage-making, while referencing her background as a miniature painter with the selective choice of wasli. Regarding the representation of paper surfaces in her work, Hussain states: “Starting from the blank white pages of a diary which is a symbol of keeping a day-to-day record of one’s pains and pleasures to the claustrophobic images filled with unreadable text spreading like a contagious virus.”⁵ Pages of undecipherable text with stains of water and ink allude to the idea of “lost time”, creating the illusion of aged paper, and in turn, withering histories of one’s personal archives.

In a series of photographic prints titled Sight Plan, Nida Bangash displays a female figure dressed in white under a white table, in front of a white background, with white tea cups and plates scattered on top and on the ground. Bangash’s symbolic use of white-on-white objects and surfaces carefully represents the semiotics of a woman’s domesticity in relation to tea-serving practices in Pakistani households, and in turn, the burden that befalls her shoulders. She examines the political tensions in the private space of the home in a series of artist books. Designed as a the façade of a house with a triangular roof in the form of a paper box, her “Bol” series features thirteen artist books that construct and deconstruct the “home”, that explore ideas of “loss, dislocation, displacement and territoriality.” ⁶

Ruby Chisti’s use of fabric and hand-sewing aims to connect with a craft handed down by generations of uncelebrated female heroes, paying tribute to the struggles they endured. Her paintings, drawings, and sculptural pieces repetitively portray the female body in various familiar poses, some hinting at historical references of female figures such as “Madonna and Child”, with others deliberately defying stereotypical female representation by portraying them in warriors’ attire instead. Also reminiscent of fertility goddess figurines, her Warriors at Work series of figures are formed using pantyhose (a typically feminine piece of clothing) along with other pieces of recycled cloth, repurposing the medium of found garments to allude to mass-production in contemporary fashion practices, social memory, and deconstruction of the “superficial” portrayal of women’s bodies throughout history.

Another artist working with textiles and fabric as a medium is Sania Samad. Using traditional Pakistani kurtas as her canvas, the four pieces in her “Punctured Boundaries” series serve as “tactile archives”, with embroidery needles and thread visibly hanging on the exterior of the shirts instead of hidden in the seams. The act of stitching fabric is no longer serving a functional purpose, but instead becomes performative and imbued with the deeper purpose of connecting stories, history, and tradition. In Dastoor, the motif of the kurta is reimagined in a painting. Urdu poet Zehra Nigah’s poem Suna Hai is written in Urdu on one side, with multiple kurtas painted on the other. Different girls’ and women’s names are inscribed in the kurtas, along with the artist’s own name. Nigah’s poem symbolizes the law of the jungle, implying that even animals follow a social order. Samad uses that implication in her work, seemingly highlighting the many gender-based inequalities and violence women are subjected to in Pakistani society. She further uses the Pakistani flag in her embroidery work, using patterns of cats, parrots, and sparrows to symbolize multiple contexts – from culture and domesticity to communication and migration.

The trials and tribulations of existing as a woman in Pakistani society— fundamentally patriarchal and enmeshed in religious conservatism— is merely subtext in each artist’s work. Hashmi invites viewers to look closely at the deeply personal encounters and layered meanings in each artist’s work, engaging directly in the discomfort and challenges of their experiences. The relationship between symbols, archives, and materials weaves a deeper connection that resonates with the female experience in defiance of the constraints of tradition and culture, while at the same time, in celebration of them.

Title Image: I Belong to No Land, Sania Samad, Embroidery, velvet, beads and silk thread, 44 1/2 x 72 in (date not mentioned)

“Narrators of Dissonance” curated by Salima Hashmi and featuring works by Nida Bangash, Ruby Chishti, Aisha Abid Hussain, and Sania Samad was on display at 1×1 Art Gallery in Dubai from 28th January – 31st March 2025.