ISLAMABAD: Food For Thought, a collaborative art and book exhibition is serving art lovers here at gallery 8b2 featuring a collection of art by visual artist Anjum Alix Noon and inspirations from Culinary Tales of Baluchistan by Nilofer Afridi Qazi till Nov 22.
Using the medium of acrylic on canvas, the show carries as many as 55 pieces that revolve around content and context from the book Culinary Tales from Balochistan by Nilofer Afridi Qazi. The book is presented as a journal of recipes, anecdotes, folklore, travels, places, history, hospitality, people and memories. The artwork has developed around these elements.
“Nilofer’s book is the inspiration that I used by art to display in this show. Having collaborated with diverse disciplines, I developed it into an artist’s journey through a book. The initial approach was a visualization of an imaginary travelogue composed of sketches, scribbled notes, maps and historical layering into various elements. Thus, I made a basic analysis and mind mapping of those materials, references and sources,” said Anjum Alix Noon about his work.
Culinary Tales from Baluchistan took me to vast landscapes where people and places appeared as figments and memories. The abstractions combine old photographs, ancient irrigation Karez system, Bardasht (goat’s shoulder bone), Dastarkhwan and Dawat. The artwork is eclectic and holistic, using several mediums such as linocut, stencils, acrylic paints, and aquarelle on paper, canvas and Wasli (handmade paper) in small to large formats. Its focal point is the creative process and how ideas have formed and developed. The artistic effervescence is made up of endless spheres of creativity that navigates into the realm of the imagination and the end results are colorful and vivid.
“Culinary Tales from Baluchistan is just the beginning. This journey continues to inspire, seeking the beauty, the complexity of my province. The Food stories in the collection are oral histories wrapped in ancient cultural markers. Post publication of my book, I am equally curious about what it invokes in my fellow citizens,” said Nilofer about the book.
As vast a canvas as Baluchistan is, this exhibition endeavors to capture the contours of an encounter between an artist and a writer. The purpose of this exhibition is to continue the conversation on Baluchistan. “Traditionally, book launches tend to focus on the author while my intent, has always been to shift our imagination towards the people and places as directly as possible. My topic remains food, ingredients and culinary culture. My food mapping work (a 54 part series) began with Pakistan on a Plate Series, collecting and preserving through documenting Pakistan’s invisible heritage recipes, from across Pakistan’s provinces. I have a deep interest and curiosity about how culinary cultures reveal the reservoir of our civilizational roots,” she said.
