WEBVTT

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(peaceful music)

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(gentle music)

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As a female, my entire life,

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I've been aware of patriarchal spaces

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and how erasure is enacted
on women in the civic space,

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the space of law, the space of art.

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You have to open up these
spaces to represent all of us.

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(gentle music)

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For almost three decades, I have worked

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in the Indian and Persian
manuscript traditions.

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Having grown up in Pakistan,

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I didn't have access to a
lot of the original artwork.

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Because of colonial history,

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the majority of this work has
been torn and dismembered,

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and ended up in Western institutions.

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Erasure. Lack of visibility.

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These things are at the core
of my relationship with art.

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(gentle music)

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Moving between animation,
murals, mosaic, and sculpture,

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I often think of my practice
as an anti-monument,

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because it engages the past,

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but it doesn't glorify the past.

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(gentle music)

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I was really inspired by public artwork

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and what monuments could stand for.

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The conflicts that are there

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because people have
competing visions of history.

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When Madison Square Park

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asked me to put a proposal together,

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I thought I would love to explore the art

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in the courthouse overlooking the park,

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and then tie it into the
project with the park.

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(gentle music)

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Works that are here,

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which, of course, are part of a history,

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it's a moment in time
captured for what it is.

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(gentle music)

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On the roof of the courthouse

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are nine statues of ancient
male lawgivers or philosophers.

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There's Manu, the author of Hindu laws,

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and then there's King Louis IV of France.

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However, the space of the women

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is in this allegorical space,
such as the Lady Justice.

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(gentle music)

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Why couldn't there be another
iteration of the feminine,

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standing on its own sort of
truth as an equal participant?

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- Like, if you were
there, if you're walking,

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you could see both.

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I decided to make two sculptures.

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One is inside the park.

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One is on the roof of the courthouse.

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(birds chirping)

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So, this is one of the early sketches.

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(gentle music)

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A signature image in my work
has been this feminine body,

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kind of a quick gesture,

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often emerging out of
just gouache on paper.

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So it's this sort of very
fluid notion of the body,

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and it has a multiplicity to it.

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It felt very true to me to start there.

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What is it? Is it the legs?

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- Parts of it.

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The legs.

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When they're sort of looping back in,

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for me, that suggests a
form that is self-rooted.

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(crew member indistinctly speaking)

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- Okay.

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The feminine can carry its
roots wherever it goes.

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It can choose to go wherever it wants.

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You don't need to have roots

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into one specific space or time,

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nation or culture.

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(gentle music)

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The suggestion of horns

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could be a unification through braids.

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It has a very clear link to
an older painting of mine,

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talking more about the courage,

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fluidity, and resilience of the feminine.

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No one person on a plinth

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can represent multiple perspectives,

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so it had to be more allegorical,

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like a feminine collective
space that can keep growing.

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(gentle music)

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In the sculpture on the rooftop,

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she has the seat of the lotus.

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It is really symbolic of
humility and clarity and wisdom.

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My big concern was how to

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go in the direction of sculpture,

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but keep it as close to my animations

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and have as much movement in the work.

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You can see how light is
coming through the ceiling.

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It's very subtle, but it's changing.

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Just that itself implies movement.

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I wanted to play off of the
ceiling in the courthouse,

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so the skirt allows it to show

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the glass ceiling that the
feminine can break through.

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Sort of floating here.

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(Shahzia chuckles)
(gentle music)

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Then I can mimic this
gorgeous stained glass

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with actual glass mosaic on the sculpture.

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- So, see, like this.

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- Oh, that color is really-

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- [Mosaic Artist] Yeah,
I have a lot of this.

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- [Shahzia] Clean and bright.

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- [Mosaic Artist] Yes.
It's really a nice color.

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- [Shahzia] Yeah. This
will work really well.

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- [Mosaic Artist] It's beautiful.

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- [Shahzia] This can
be used in more amount.

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- [Mosaic Artist] Yep.

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When I was sketching the skirt,

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I started to play with the word
"havah" on the skirt itself.

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In my spoken Urdu, "havah" would mean air,

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the breath's relationship to life.

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Also, "havah" can imply Eve.

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(mosaic artist indistinctly murmurs)

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- Let's break this.

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- [Mosaic Artist] Okay.

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[Shahzia] Eve could be
considered the first lawbreaker.

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(glass clatters)
(gentle music)

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Female are often the markers
when boundaries are melting.

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- The significant of it
being just up there is huge!

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- Symbolically-

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- Yes!

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- It's a big intervention.

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- Yes.

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(speakers indistinctly talking)

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Since the work has been up,

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there's been a lot of commentary
on abortion and women.

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The context in this particular project

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is allowing the work to have meanings

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that it would not carry otherwise.

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It animates people's politics
and fraught relationships.

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I thrive on hearing what happens over time

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to a project and to a dialogue.

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- Women artists.

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How else does an artist center
their sense of creativity?

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(gentle music)

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Whenever we create art and
put something in the world,

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I believe it just pushes the envelope of

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who gets to be represented
a little further.

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These things are really integral to

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how art can then negotiate a
space for a future generation.

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(gentle music)