Daily Times

“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form (Heart Sutra, ancient Buddhist text). There is need to transcend doing “art for art’s sake”. In our cultural institutions landscape, “form” of culture is there, the “spirit” often missing. It does not take too much ingenuity to transform our cultural institutions into dynamic lived places that speak the language of poetry, music and art. Yet, initiatives to transform cultural institutes are often lacking.

Affinity for poetry, music and literature does not necessarily denote “high” culture. If Mir, Ghalib, Faiz is not something you are interested in or music by Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Roshan Ara Begum, Farida Khanum or Mehdi Hasan is not your cup of tea, it does not mean that you are not interested in culture. We have such rich folk poetry,music, stories (dastaans), traditional dance in all the major native languages and regions of Pakistan, that contents-rich beautiful cultural endowments are available whether you are well-versed with Urdu or other regional and local languages. What is needed is the cultivation of taste to go beyond the mundane.

We would present the case of one art institute in Islamabad called Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA). Although, under the directorship of artist Jamal Shah, PNCA has provided its premises for many good cultural events drawing participants from regional, national and international forums and showed a spirit of solidarity and going beyond the mundane in conceiving its many programmes. However, this out of box thinking seems lacking when it comes to the usage of excellent art gallery that it has.

In the past few weeks, we have attended two art exhibitions in PNCA. In both these exhibitions and many others, so much effort has been put in curating and organizing this display of art. Yet, when we visited the PNCA, there were hardly other visitors in the gallery area. Other than exhibition opening shows, one would be surprised if PNCA receives more than a handful visitors in a single day in its gallery area. Why have such excellent gallery space, put so much effort in organizing art exhibitions and not be able to expose more people to art?

One area where PNCA can work easily is to expose the school children to art displayed in its galleries. There are hundreds of schools in urban and rural Islamabad. There are some more hundreds of schools in areas adjoining Islamabad. There is nothing better for school children than to be exposed to art, music and poetry. It widens their horizon of thinking and helps to overcome the gaps left in our curriculum. When children are exposed to art and culture young in their lives, it can remain a life-long passion for them when they grow up and helps to make them more compassionate citizens.

It is not the resource constraint that keeps our institutes from being transformed into lived placed of cultural relevance; it is often the lack of dynamism and bureaucratic hurdles. As pointed out that we have an excellent gallery space in PNCA where art is routinely displayed with great effort

Similarly, there are dozens of colleges in Islamabad and quite a few universities around. Other than schools; college and university students should also be invited to visit the art exhibitions. Curriculum in the state-controlled educational institutes often cultivates narrow-minded thinking in students. Exposing them to art, poetry and music will help them to become more well rounded individuals. It would also be an excellent antidote to extremism and bigotry in the society.

In this case, we cannot alone blame the PNCA for the lack of initiative; Ministry of Education is equally responsible for not being dynamic enough. It requires someone in PNCA to liaison with the Federal Board in Islamabad and private schools association to set up a router for school children every day to visit various art exhibitions in Islamabad. Children studying in areas adjoining Islamabad can be approached through their respective Boards of Education. Bureaucratic hurdles are an issue. Therefore, there is need to get a buy-in of the Ministry of Education. It should be a joint collaboration of the Ministry of Education and the art institutes like the PNCA.

Transportation of children from their schools to PNCA is another issue. However, it is not an issue that cannot be resolved. If PNCA or government of Pakistan does not resources to arrange for a bus ride for children, some private philanthropic initiatives could be sought to help address this resource constraint. Even if PNCA is provided one bus and running expenditure, it can every day fetch students and teachers from a different school of urban/rural Islamabad or its adjoining areas and then drop them back.

It is not the resource constraint that keeps our institutes from being transformed into lived placed of cultural relevance; it is often the lack of dynamism and bureaucratic hurdles. As pointed out that we have an excellent gallery space in PNCA where art is routinely displayed with great effort. Yet, it seems to be an effort to do art for art’s sake; to display the “form” of art and the “spirit” of it being seen and appreciated by those who are not exposed to art is often missing. There is need for our cultural and educational bureaucracy to think out of box and infuse dynamism into our cultural institutions.

The writer has a social science background and can be reached on twitter @FoqiaKhan

Published in Daily Times, December 31^st 2018.