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[[left margin]] INTERVIEW [[/left margin]]

Images from 'her' world: Zarina Hashmi's visual idiom is decisively based in the Muslim ethos of the subcontinent

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tures found in art books in her father's library and built houses out of mud in the garden. Later she touched on these early forms in a sculpture series created from paper pulp and cast from moulds made of plexi glass.
She studied bronze casting in London, and exhibited an extensive collection of bronze pieces at the Bronx Museum of Art in '92. Choosing a life in art demanded from her the utmost in sacrifice and in return allowed her the ultimate freedom of aesthetic growth. Exploring her chosen discipline became the artist's raison d'etre and necessitated a solitary, nomadic existence. 'Home' became a theme in her art described inn prints, and sculpture, many of which were small enough to be carried in a pocket.
"I think the romance with the house series was documenting my life, I wanted to map who I was and where I came from...like the floor plans I have done of all the houses I have lived in."
From her early days in New York, Zarina had been committed to the causes of women artists and to the widening of boundaries of art. She became very much a part of the New York art scene and a role model for struggling young women artists. There were times when, feeling lonely, she remembered the women's sewing groups of her mother's era; the animated conversations that she loved to listen in on as a child and living in New York, she added stitches to her prints and introduced text written in Urdu and English prose.
Zarina continued to explore the theme of 'home' in multi-media techniques that earned favourable reviews in significant art publications.
"When I went back to New York from Karachi in 2000 I had one more shoe to do: 'Home is a Foreign Place', and that was the end of my. home series. Then I spent 2001 preparing for my retrospective exhibition, 'Mapping a Life', at the Mills College Art Museum, California." During the exhibition Zarina spoke of her deep satisfaction in working with the medium of woodblock and talked about her new work
"My last etching was produced in '96; since then I have focused on wood block prints. I started out as a wood cut artist and in Japan my inspiration was Muna Kato Sheio, who was himself inspired by the political connotations of the German Expressionists. He was the first artist to carve his own block. I visited his gallery in Japan and wanted very much to meet him but he was very sick at the time. Working with wood blocks takes time and it's like meditation. I prepare the wood, carve it, put on some soothing music and it helps me to think. I like to work with organic materials in natural light."
Talking of the tragic turn of events that followed the retrospective exhibition, she said: "I look back on the year 2002 as a lost year. There were health problems, but nothing has ever stopped me from working. Yet, 9/11 and its aftermath almost took away my reason to work. I didn't talk about or work on my home series anymore because so many homes had been destroyed all over the world.
"I had been working on maps of the cities I have lived in, but abandoned the idea because maps have become unnecessary when there is nowhere to go and no roads left. Eventually I began to work on a series of devastated cities inspired by a line from the poem by Ghalib... 'These cities blotted into the wilderness'. It's an on-going series that I plan to continue describing the cities devastated and the countries they belong to."
Soon to return to her studio in New York, Zarina will prepare for a presentation at the Peabody South Asian Art Museum, where she will show her new work titled 'Unsafe Havens'. The work raises the issue of sanctuary and so-called 'havens', as she points out, people are no longer safe even in their own homes. "There is no place to hide, no place where people can feel safe, and" she continues, "It really breaks your heart to see the world crumbling."

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When you come out of the Train Station 
Take a rickshaw to the Taar wala bangla 
You will come out on Railway Road 
On your left is Naqvi Park Next to a Gothic Looking Clock Tower 
Railway Road becomes University Road
On your left is Lal Diggi
A big Pond Full of Water Chestnuts
On your left is Victoria Gate
The Main Entrance to the Campus
Continue on University Road
At the Crossroads turn right on Shibli Road
The Name is Carved in Red Stone
In English and Urdu
Follow this Gravel Road
To an open area with big fruit trees
Turn Right again you will see the Red Brick House set back
You cannot miss its Bougainvillea-covered Fence
IT should not take you very long to get there
It is only Seven Thousand Four Hundred and Thirty-Eight Miles Away.
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2 DAWN GALLERY SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2004