WEBVTT

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SHAHZIA SIKANDER:
There's something about the process,

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the miniature process of painting 
in this scale, primarily,

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which keeps it in control.

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I'm basically staining the paper

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and it has to be a very even stain.

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It's slow. and you have to keep the edge

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of the tea really, sort of, always in flow

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so that you just drip the 
whole edge down steadily.

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It's very meditative,

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and there's a sense of familiarity

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because a lot of years have gone in here.

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(scraping)

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One thing I've learned is respect for tradition

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and respect for patience,

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because you just cannot achieve anything,

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like you can't achieve a painting if you don't...

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Like you need time. Time is the key.

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So I can't, like, do a show

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and prepare a body of work in a year.

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I need three to four years.

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(bells ringing)

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Miniature painting, you know,

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comes out of book illustration, 
manuscript, painting.

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It's an old art form.

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All the strange piled up, stacked up perspective,

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interior spaces and then 
suggestions of windows and doors,

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which suggest the outside 
world or the spiritual world,

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or some notion of perfection.

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That kind of jewel-like, 
translucency that comes through

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is only because you have a discipline behind it.

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It takes many, many layers,

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at least like 10 to 20 layers of different color,

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to build it up.

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And you have to be very careful,

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because if your brush is 
loaded with too much water,

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you lift off the earlier layers of pigment also,

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'Cause they're not sealed.

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So, it's practice.

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Sometimes, like when I'm not in practice,

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all the 10 years of experience 
doesn't mean a thing.

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But when we were studying in school in Pakistan,

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my teacher used to have us sit 
on the floor on white sheets

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and you get to leave your shoes outside.

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And everything was very precise and very clean

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and very minimum.

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And you worked on your work 
and you did eye exercises.

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You kept your work at least 
a foot away from your eyes.

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And it was very methodical.

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it had a very sort of...

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It was very ritualistic also.

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(Bells ringing)

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I feel like acquiring a 
miniature painting early on...

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For me, it was painting.

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I was looking and understanding

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the formal sensibility of painting,

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except I was not painting on canvas.

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And I was painting on paper

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with a particular set of material,

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but it was all about surface, palette, form,

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composition, stylization.

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And self-expression came later.

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(bells ringing)

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A lot of my work is deeply personal

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and is drawn out of memory.

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If you look at this particular border,

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it's called riding the written 
and here the text becomes

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more like horses or there's 
a suggestion of movement.

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And that aspect is my 
experience of reading the Quran,

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where I would read it with 
no particular understanding

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because I was a child and I could read Arabic,

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but I couldn't understand it.

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And the memory of it is this amazing visual memory

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where the beauty of the written word

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supersedes everything else.

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The meaning is there, but 
it's not just the meaning.

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It's the ability of the written 
text to take you to that

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other level.

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(bells ringing)

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My whole purpose of taking on miniature painting

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was to break the tradition, to experiment with it,

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to find new ways of making meaning

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and to question the relevance of it.

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(paper crinkling)
The starting point in all my work,

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whether it's small or it's large,

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actually begins as simple drawings,

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which are done on transparent tissue paper.

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A lot of the images that exist 
in my work were happening

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because I was interested

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in subverting Hindu

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with Muslim and Muslim with Hindu.

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Having grown up as a Muslim in Pakistan,

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I didn't have much information 
about Hindu mythology.

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And when I came here,

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I realized that these were the things

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which still interested me.

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And I was looking at the 
idea of the Hindu goddess,

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but it didn't matter how many hands it had.

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Just the notion that it was the female body

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with several hands was important.

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But the goddess has a very specific face.

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And here I was dripping off the face and,

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and putting, like, a 
headdress-like veil on top of it.

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And yet the veil is on top of a Hindu goddess,

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not to underestimate what's behind the veil.

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The minute you bring the 
word veil into the equation,

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it kind of connects you to a Muslim identity

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or a woman's identity.

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And these are very loaded issues to take on

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because anything and everything 
associated with Islam

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is either terrorism...

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<v ->Um-Hm.</v>
...or oppression for women.

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Culturally, it's not, you know, my experience.

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My grandparents, my parents, everybody was very,

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very progressive, very supportive people.

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My grandfather was very encouraging

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towards careers for women, with everybody.

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All the girls in the family.

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They did something with their lives.

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<v ->But then I was not keen.</v>

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If she's going to the National College of Arts,

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then she might as well do 
architecture, which has scope.

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You know? And like, you know, 
when she said fine arts,

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one was a bit, you know...

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At the most, you just hang a 
few paintings in the house,

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whether you have a future or not.

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(laughing)
That was so rude.

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<v ->So I was skeptical about that.</v>

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(forklift whirring)

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<v ->This type of work for me</v>

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was, like, just the opposite

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of the process of doing miniature painting.

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(paper sliding)

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This particular installation 
is much, much more spontaneous.

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And it's always a challenge

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because the decisions made are fast.

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It involves my entire body.

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It's like I'm working within 
the space and I'm up and down,

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you know, the ladders and I'm like painting.

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And then, everything kind 
of happens from start to end

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within like four, five days.

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So, there's a certain energy which comes out.

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There is a certain sense of a little relief.

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Where several drawings have 
been hung on top of each other,

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there's no intention to hide anything.

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Everything is very visible. 
The paper is transparent.

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It floats, it moves.

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The idea, you know, comes out 
of this whole relationship

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to veiling and revealing.

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I'm always taking photographs, doing sketches

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or taking notes.

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And then, I carry them wherever I go.

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I brought so much stuff from Pakistan

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and then so much stuff from Texas.

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And then, every time I sit to do some work,

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all of it is opened up.

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For me, it's always like these divine circles.

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You know, you go and you experience something

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and then you come back right where you started.

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When I'm working large and 
I paint and I do murals,

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the next thing is always, I 
come back to miniature painting.

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I can hate miniature for a while

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because it's frustrating

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because for all the different reasons

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of doing something so labor intensive, you know,

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which takes years to make.

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So it's like always, "Why do I do this?"

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And I let go and I do something else,

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but I always come back to it.

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And maybe because by the sheer act of doing it

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is what gives me certain sort of...

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you know, peace.

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(soft piano music)