Text based

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‘HeadLies’

‘HeadLies’ Blogspot

‘HeadLies’ is a text and visual project that uses real newspaper headlines but the stories beneath them are fabricated and fictional. Newspapers often take sides and we, the reader, judge on humanity from its text and photograph. From the newspaper’s perspective, access to public information is a good thing but a newspaper’s function surely is to tell the society about itself and to be a pollinator of its information? Its role is to inform the citizens but as information gradually travels down, the citizens become ill-advised, ill-prepared and mis-informed. 

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‘Defamiliarization’

‘Defamiliarization’ Blogspot

“The purpose of art is to force us to notice” according to Viktor Shklovsky, a Russian Formalist who explored the technique of ‘defamiliarization’.Through this technique one can step back from the habitual way of thinking to make the familiar become more interesting by promoting an awareness of ones perception. Defamiliarization allows us to engage more with art and re-enhance the world around us.

Instructions

As part of this exploration the instructions below were given to artists locally and globally

-An artist responds in 10 words to the word ‘defamiliarization’

-This response is passed onto another artist in a different location

-The second artist alters/ changes/ adapts the words

-The second artist displays the interpreted words in a setting which represents their city/ country; a place which is familiar to them.

-They then take a photograph/s of the new words in their new place

-The photographs will be returned to the original artists who are re-introduced to their defamiliarized words in an unfamiliar location.

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‘Shifting Identities’

‘Shifting Identities’ Text piece for Pop Samiti, 2009. It comprises of collected data from interviewing South Asian participants and forming a hybrid but unified response.

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‘Pill Gardens’

For the since the 60’s years my father, Moboshir Ali, has had numerous life threatening illnesses from heart attacks to kidney failure. His life as he knew it slowed down and he committed himself to his large but derelict garden, a new life long project.

He has had to take over 40 types of pills and tablets which sometimes accounts up to 18 a day. Simultaneously he has invested in, grown and nurtured up 100 types of fruits, vegetables, flowers and shrubs. His extensive range of plants have all been documented and listed in a journal from the day he became ill in 1989 and continuing today. The formulaic listing comprises of the name, price, date that particular plant was bought and sowed. Thus, a progressive metaphorical commentary on Moboshir’s life was evidenced.

I have built up an archive of his ‘medical paraphernalia’ related to his illness that includes extensive medical files, photographs of his scars from operations and a collection of hundreds of pill boxes. The labels on the bottles is a name of a plant, the date it was sowed and his name, all taken from his plant diary. 

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‘A Cup of Tea Solves Everything’

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