The Arts

How Can You Demolish a Dictator with Cartoons?

The book ‘Satire and Ridicule: Cartoons that Demolished a Dictator (July Uprising)’, edited by Shahidul Alam, weaves a framework in which the answers could be found.

How should political cartoonists and illustrators respond to a brutally repressive regime that silences all dissent and free expression? How can artists make complex socio-political issues more accessible through their work? Can satire and humour be used to defeat a dictatorship? Are political cartoons still relevant in the digital age? What’s the role of cartoonists and illustrators in society at large?

Shahidul Alam (ed.)
Satire and Ridicule: Cartoons That Demolished a Dictator
Drik Picture Library, Earki, and the Bangladesh Cartoonist Association, 2024
Cover illustration: Mehedi Haque

Based on the exhibition ‘Cartoon e Bidroho (Cartoons of Rebellion)’, the book Satire and Ridicule: Cartoons that Demolished a Dictator (July Uprising), edited by noted Bangladeshi photojournalist Shahidul Alam, weaves a framework in which answers to these questions could be found. It is published jointly by Bangladesh Cartoonists Association, Drik Picture Library and Earki.

Throughout history, art has always served the purpose of an archive. From Goya’s harrowing Disasters of War and Chittoprasad’s stark illustrations of 1943’s Bengal famine to Käthe Kollwitz’s visual documentations of the Great Peasants Revolt (to name a few), art has consistently documented realities, responded to them, and quite often shaped them too.

Satire and Ridicule fulfils this very purpose. It is a collection of illustrations, cartoons and graffiti made during the July mass uprising in Bangladesh last year that ultimately led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina from power. Divided into eight chapters, the book chronologically and thematically curates the cartoons and illustrations to tell the story of the uprising – what sparked the movement and what followed. With an unapologetic tone, vivid colours and bold fonts, the book captures the zeitgeist of a nation suffocating under a dictatorial regime and chronicles how a student-led protest grew into a nationwide uprising through a blend of images and narratives.

The slogan ‘they robbed me of my mother tongue’, when Urdu language was imposed on Bengalis by the Pakistan government in 1952, gained new meaning in 2024 because of Hasina’s brutal crackdown. Illustration: Tuba Tanjum

In the book’s preface, Alam, Simu Naser and Mehedi Haque write:

“She (Sheikh Hasina) had destroyed all public institutions, converted the police into a private army and weaponised the judiciary. Leading artists and intellectuals had become complicit in the repression. They used the struggle for freedom in 1971 to plaster over the murderous repression by the Hasina regime.

There were important exceptions. A group of young cartoonists at Earki and Bangladesh Cartoonist Association (BANCARAS), along with a few of their mentors, continued to protest throughout the repressive period despite the risks. Drik continued to exhibit their work despite the danger. Some visitors continued to come and see the work despite the possible dire outcome. Some newspapers covered these events despite the risk of being shut down. With the fall of the dictator, there was a new burst of creativity which led to a new exhibition. It is the courage, the tenacity and the undying belief in democracy which brought these organisations BANCARAS, Earki and Drik Picture Library and these talented cartoonists together. We celebrate them through this book.”

This book is a tribute to the indomitable courage of the people of Bangladesh, especially young cartoonists/artists whose works, shared across the social media platforms and streets of Bangladesh, helped build solidarities across the country even during a brutal crackdown on dissent.

Illustration: Shamiron Bormon

Encountering complex and multifaceted realities, each image, imbued with satire, irony, resilience, ridicule and anger, becomes a window into the socio-political landscape of the time. We see the dictator’s hubris lampooned, her manipulation of the 1971 liberation narrative exposed, the brutal reality of police and state-sponsored “helmet goons” and the people’s simmering discontent given a visual voice. The cartoons range from subtle jabs to outright mockery, demonstrating the diverse ways artists across Bangladesh took on Hasina’s regime and registered their dissent.

In this era often called post-truth, where entrenched beliefs, fake news and misinformation take up most of the space in public discourse, it seems easier than ever for any authoritarian or dictatorial regime to dilute and obliterate the memories of violence from the collective mind with sheer lies and propaganda. However, this book appears to be an effort to use art as a witness, remembering and documenting quite vividly what has been perpetrated and how the people of Bangladesh collectively responded with a revolution. The illustrations show how the efforts of the Hasina regime to label student protestors as ‘razakars’ (Bengali collaborators of the Pakistan Army) completely backfired, how the gruesome acts of killing students and young protestors led to even bigger resistance nationwide, how a series of misinformation campaigns by the Hasina regime were instantly debunked and turned into mockery and memes, and despite it all how the people of Bangladesh stood firm in the pursuit of democracy and justice.

While sharply pointing towards ‘Ek Dopha, Ek Dabi (One Point, One Demand)’ – used as a slogan to call for an end to the Hasina regime – the illustrations also evoke some long-buried questions regarding indigenous rights, army repression, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

Indigenous activist Kalpana Chakma and her two brothers were abducted on 12 June 1996 from their home at Lallyaghona village allegedly by soldiers. She is still missing. No one has been tried for her disappearance. The Chittagong Hill Tracts, home to the largest concentration of indigenous people in Bangladesh, have been under military occupation since 1976. Photo by Shahidul Alam, of graffiti in the Dhaka University campus

It also illustrates how to deal with a media that is propagandist and complicit to state-sponsored violence, and how not to fall prey to the ‘crocodile tears’ and ‘nice gestures’ of leaders of an oppressive regime.

Cartoon tells Hasina to do less theatrics, ‘Pio (Dear)’. Illustration: Asifur Rahman

Satire and Ridicule provides insight into the contemporary political cartooning scene in Bangladesh, a nation with a rich history of political cartoons, dating back to its independence movement in 1971 and the years that followed. Over time, however, many leading cartoonists were silenced due to political turmoil, repressive laws, threats of arrest, censorship and intimidation. With the emergence of the July mass uprising, a new generation of illustrators and cartoonists came to the forefront, developing new visual languages of political cartoons that marked the medium’s resurgence after a long period of suppression.

More than a historical record, the book offers a visceral and compelling journey through intense social and political upheaval in Bangladesh. This book is an essential read for anyone interested in the history of political satire and art, the dynamics of social movements, and the ongoing struggles for democracy and freedom of expression. It serves as a potent reminder of the crucial role that artists play in holding power accountable and instilling hope in even the darkest of times.

The India Art Fair Needs to Get Out of its Bubble and Reimagine Itself

For many years, this event has worked out a formula which it doesn’t want to tamper with.

I first attended the India Art Fair some 15 years ago, much before it had become a mega social and cultural event. At the time – but for some curious onlookers – the big halls were largely empty and desolate. Bored gallery owners and booth representatives from many foreign galleries sat amongst their wares, wondering perhaps if their adventure into India’s art market required a rethink.

Now all that stands changed. In the 17 years of its existence, the fair has grown in size and diversity, becoming one of the largest in Asia, on par with Art Singapore and Art Dubai. As it opens this week, over 120 galleries and more than 40 new and young artists will participate from South Asia, giving the exhibition a decidedly subcontinental flavour. This time the widening arc of foreign participants like Lisson Gallery, David Swirner and others will not miss the chance to sell big in India. Alongside them, numerous Indian galleries, collectors and art institutions will vie for that special place in the public eye and the private wallet.

The warehouse set up is a cross between a stylish white-walled gallery and a Dilli Haat, a fusion in tune with the widely incongruous combination of the art on display – shiny stainless steel Anish Kapoor sculpture, ceramic work from Bengal, monumental Ai Wei Wei paintings, Rajasthani miniatures, glass installations and tribal art from Odisha. The wholly democratic and diverse four-day event is always in pursuit of a balanced egalitarianism. Throughout the vast space there are artworks with hidden messages on gender, politics, censorship, beauty, ugliness and oppression. Installations of stretched threads, 3D paper works and darkened video black boxes are all enormously stimulating and expressive, many works stating new and original positions on environmental and social themes. The eccentric mix, however, makes abundantly plain that today’s art is no longer meant for the living room sofa wall.

Also read: Exam Warriors Festival: Using Art Not for Creativity but to Programme Young Minds

The author’s sculpture, ‘Artificial Intelligence’, on display at the India Art Fair 2025. Photo: Gautam Bhatia

However relevant the individual works, in its most potent message, art needs to be a tool for optimism. Every year when I visit the fair, it is with an expectation that collectively the assembly will act as a guide to what makes India better, truly creative and upbeat. And that somewhere in the eclectic mix is a revelation that makes us different from Art Basel and Art Dubai. Every year I leave confused and disappointed. Sadly, the fair seems destined to grow within its own commercial bubble. Largely self conscious, insular and private, it remains fixated in an awkward mix of internationalism and Indian traditional art. A successful formula that need not be tampered with.

Now, after 15 editions, the India Art Fair must rethink and redefine its vision of what makes it different from European and other Asian fairs. Is it enough to display art as a varied collection of booths for private galleries, or does it need a more transformative display of ideas relevant to India? Could the phenomenal range of Indian talent be organised differently? Could the fair in fact evolve into a pathbreaking event in the future, beyond a mere commercial art bazaar?

For this, three things are of utmost importance: organisation, theme and medium. First, a reorganisation of the presentation away from individual gallery booths into one unified space, so that the artworks and their relationship to each other tells a clear story. Second, a greater interest in the art would come from a theme-based event rather than vastly varied pieces showcased in little rooms – themes as wide ranging as The City, Technology, Ecology, Gender, Family, The Future and others that artistically engage with the relevant political and social issues of our times. Finally, there is the need to focus on a different art medium each time – either sculpture, drawing, film, video, installation, etc. so that the fair is not always just a painting exhibition. These changes will help not just to place the vast material into a narrative sequence, but will also allow the admiring public to gain an understanding of what is truly relevant.

Also read: Through Art, This Village in West Bengal Bridges Faith and Heritage

Today, there are few public platforms in India where people can speak boldly and fearlessly about things that matter. To be timid in a medium that can communicate loudly and effectively would be a shame. Beyond just the so-called Khan Market gang and the Lutyens crowd, there are many more people waiting to hear. If, however, art merely continues its foray into political abstraction and the commercial market space, it is likely to miss the opportunity to make that important public connection.

Unlike European and American galleries, our cultural connection with art has still not formalised into critical experience. It is instead a mix of idle curiosity, some wonder and tentative investment. Indian art’s frame of reference is both raucous and contemplative, crowd pleasing and private, its ideas traditional and futuristic, some dormant and unexplored. With the India Art Fair widening its reach each successive year, there is hope that these will finally leave the enclosed gallery and reach a wider public.

Gautam Bhatia is an architect and commentator.

Rereading Rembrandt: How Slave Trade Helped Establish the Golden Age of Dutch Painting

Historically, the 1500s in Dutch economic prosperity has been called the “golden age”, when famous Dutch painters worked, such as Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer. The slave trade is a haunting presence in their images.

The so-called golden age of Dutch painting in the 1600s coincided with an economic boom that had a lot to do with the transatlantic slave trade. But how did the slave trade shape the art market in the Netherlands? And how is it reflected in the paintings of the time?

This is the subject of a new book called Slavery and the Invention of Dutch Art by art historian Caroline Fowler. We asked about her study.

What was Dutch art about before slavery and what was the golden age?

The earliest paintings that would be called Dutch were predominantly religious. They were made for Christian devotion. In the 1500s, major divisions in the church led to a fragmentation of Christianity called the Reformation.

In this new religious climate, artists began to create new types of paintings, studying the world around them. They included landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, and interior scenes of their homes. Instead of working for the church, many painters began to work within an art market. There was a rising middle class that could afford to buy paintings.

Historically, this period in Dutch economic prosperity has been called the “golden age”. This is when many of the most famous Dutch painters worked, such as Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer.

Their work was made possible by a strong Dutch economy built on global trade networks. This included the transatlantic slave trade and the rise of the middle class. Although artists did not directly paint the transatlantic slave trade, in my book I argue that it is central to understanding the paintings produced in the 1600s as it made the economic market possible.

In turn, many of the types of painting that developed, like maritime scenes and interior scenes, are often obliquely or directly about international trade. The slave trade is a haunting presence in these images.

How did this play out within Dutch colonialism?

The new “middle class” consisted of economically prosperous merchants, artisans, lawyers and doctors. For many of the wealthiest merchants, their prosperity was fuelled by their investments in trade overseas. In land and plantations, and also commodities such as sugar, salt, mace and nutmeg.

Slavery was illegal within the boundaries of the Dutch Republic on the European continent. But it was widely practised within Dutch colonies around the world. Slavery was central to their trade overseas – from the inter-Asian slave network that made possible their domination in the export of nutmeg, to the use of enslaved labour on plantations in the Americas. It also contributed in less visible ways to Dutch economic prosperity, like the development of maritime insurance.

What was the relationship between artists and Dutch colonies?

In the new school of painting, artists would sometimes travel to the Dutch colonies. For example, Frans Post travelled to Dutch Brazil and painted the sugar plantations and mills. Another artist named Maria Sibylla Merian went to Dutch Suriname, where she studied butterflies and plants on the Dutch sugar plantations.

Both depict landscapes and the natural world but don’t directly engage with the profound dehumanisation of slavery, and an economic system dependent on enslaved labour. But this doesn’t mean that it’s absent in their sanitised renditions.

Among the sources that I used to think about the presence of the transatlantic slave trade in a culture that did not overtly depict it were inventories of paintings and early museum collections. Often the language in these sources differed from the painting in important ways. They demonstrate how the violence of the system emerges in unexpected places.

One inventory that describes paintings by Frans Post, for example, also narrates the physical punishment meted out if the enslaved tried to run away from the Dutch sugar plantations. This isn’t depicted in the painting, but it is part of the inventory that travelled beside the painting.

These moments reveal the profound presence of this system within Dutch painting, and point to the ways in which artists negotiated making this structure invisible in their paintings although they were not able to completely erase its presence.

How do you discuss Rembrandt’s paintings in your book?

Historically, studies of the transatlantic slave trade in early modern painting (about 1400-1700) have looked at paintings that directly depict either enslaved or Black individuals.

One of the points of this book is that this limits our understanding of the transatlantic slave trade in Dutch painting. A focus on blackness, for example, precludes understanding how whiteness is constructed at the same time. It fails to recognise the ways in which artists sought to diminish the presence of the slave trade in their sanitised rendition of Dutch society.

One painting that I use to think about this is Rembrandt van Rijn’s very famous work called Syndics of the Draper’s Guild. It’s a group portrait of wealthy, white merchants gathered around a table looking at a book of fabric samples.

Although there aren’t enslaved or black individuals depicted, this painting would be impossible without the transatlantic slave trade. Cloth from the Netherlands was often exchanged for enslaved people in west Africa, for example.

In my book, I draw attention to these understudied histories to understand how certain assumptions around whiteness, privilege, and wealth developed in tandem with an emerging visual vocabulary around blackness and the transformation of individual lives into chattel property.

What do you hope readers will take away from the book?

I hope that readers will think about how many of our ideas about freedom, the middle class, art markets, and economic prosperity began in the 17th-century Dutch Republic. As this book demonstrates, a central part of this narrative that has been overlooked was the transatlantic slave trade in building this fantasy.

This is in many ways an invention that traces back to the paintings of overt consumption and wealth produced in the Dutch Republic – like Vermeer’s interiors of Dutch homes.

My aim with this book is to present not only a more complex view of Dutch painting but also a reconsideration of certain dogmas today around prosperity and the art market. The rise of our current financial system, art markets and visible celebration of landscapes, seascapes and interior scenes are all inseparable from the transformation of individual lives into property. We live with this legacy today in our systems built on racial, economic and gendered inequalities.

Caroline Fowler, Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program, Clark Art Institute, and lecturer in Art History, Williams College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘We Painted Our Fear, Hope and Dreams’ − The Art and Artists of Guantánamo Bay

During his detention, al-Alwi suffered abuse and ill treatment, including forced feedings. Making art was a way for him, and others, to survive and assert their humanity, he said.

When Moath al-Alwi left Guantánamo Bay for resettlement in Oman, accompanying him on his journey was a cache of artwork he created during more than two decades of detention.

Al-Alwi was detainee number “028” – an indication that he was one of the first to arrive at the US military prison off Cuba after it opened in January 2002. His departure from the detention center on Jan. 6, 2025, along with 10 fellow inmates, was part of an effort to reduce the prison’s population before the end of President Joe Biden’s term.

For al-Alwi, it meant freedom not only for himself, but also for his artwork. While not all detainees shared his passion, creating art was not an uncommon pursuit inside Guantánamo – indeed it has been a feature, formally and informally, of the detention center since its opening more than 20 years ago.

As editors of the recently published book The Guantánamo Artwork and Testimony of Moath al-Alwi: Deaf Walls Speak, we found that art-making in Guantánamo was more than self-expression; it became a testament to detainees’ emotions and experiences and influenced relationships inside the detention center. Examining the art offers unique ways of understanding conditions inside the facility.

Art from tea bags and toilet paper

Detained without charge or trial for 23 years, al-Alwi was first cleared for release in December 2021. Due to unstable conditions in his home country of Yemen, however, his transfer was subject to finding another country for resettlement. Scheduled for release in early October 2023, he and 10 other Yemeni detainees were further delayed when the Biden administration canceled the flight due to concerns over the political climate after the October 7 attacks in Israel.

During his detention, al-Alwi suffered abuse and ill treatment, including forced feedings. Making art was a way for him, and others, to survive and assert their humanity, he said. Along with fellow former detainees Sabri al-Qurashi, Ahmed Rabbani, Muhammad Ansi and Khalid Qasim, among others, al-Alwi became an accomplished artist while being held. His work was featured in several art shows and in a New York Times opinion documentary short.

During the detention center’s early years, these men used whatever materials were at hand to create artwork – the edge of a tea bag to write on toilet paper, an apple stem to imprint floral and geometric patterns and poems onto Styrofoam cups, which the authorities would destroy after each meal.

In 2010, the Obama administration began offering art classes at Guantánamo in an attempt to show the world they were treating prisoners humanely and helping them occupy their time.

However, those attending were given only rudimentary supplies. And they were subjected to invasive body searches to and from class and initially shackled to the floor, with one hand chained to the table, throughout each session. Furthermore, the subject matter for their art was restricted – detainees were forbidden from representing certain aspects of their detention, and all artwork was subject to approval and risked being destroyed.

Despite this, many detainees participated in the classes for camaraderie and the opportunity to engage in some form of creative expression.

A window to freedom

Making art served many purposes. Mansoor Adayfi, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee and author of “Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo,” wrote in his contribution to the book on al-Alwi that initially, “we painted what we missed: the beautiful blue sky, the sea, stars. We painted our fear, hope and dreams.”

Those who have been transferred from Guantánamo describe the art as a way to express their appreciation for culture, the natural world and their families while imprisoned by a regime that consistently characterized them as violent and inhuman.

The Statue of Liberty became a frequent motif Guantánamo artists deployed to communicate the betrayal of US laws and ideals. Often, Lady Liberty was depicted in distress – drowning, shackled or hooded. For Sabri al-Qurashi, the symbol of freedom under duress represented his own condition when he painted it. “I am in prison, not free, and without any rights,” he told us.

Also read: Trump Inherits Guantánamo Prison And its Detainees, Including the ‘Forever Prisoners’

Other times, the artwork responded directly to the men’s day-to-day conditions of confinement.

One of al-Alwi’s early pieces was a model of a three-dimensional window. Approximately 40 x 55 inches, the window was filled in with images carefully torn from nature and travel magazines, and layered to create depth, so that it appeared to look out on an island with a house with palm and coconut trees made from twisted pieces of rope and soap.

Al-Alwi was initially allowed to keep it in his windowless cell, and fellow detainees and guards would visit to “look out” the window.

But, as far as we know, it was eventually lost or destroyed in a prison raid.

Art as representation and respite

In another example of how artwork can be an expression of what former detainees call their “brotherhood,” Khalid Qasim, who was imprisoned at the age of 23 and held for more than two decades before being transferred alongside al-Alwi, mixed coffee grounds and coarse sand to create a series of nine textured, evocative paintings to memorialise each of the nine men who died while held at Guantánamo.

Especially in periods when camp rules allowed detainees to create artwork in their cells, the artists’ use of prison detritus and found objects made the artwork more than simply a depiction of what the men lacked, desired or imagined. Artwork helped create an alternative forum for the men’s experiences, especially for those artists who, along with the vast majority of Guantánamo’s 779 detainees, never faced charge or trial.

The pieces served as symbols and metaphors of the detainees’ experiences. For example, al-Alwi describes his 2015 large model ship, The Ark, as fighting against the waves of an imagined, threatening sea. In creating it, he wrote, “I felt I was rescuing myself.”

Constructed out of the materials of his imprisonment, the work also points to the conditions of his daily life in Guantánamo. Made from the strands of mops, unraveled prayer cap and T-shirt threads, bottle caps, bits of sponges and cardboard from meal packaging, al-Alwi’s ships – he went on to create at least seven – reveal both his artistic ingenuity and his circumstances.

Guantánamo artists talk about the artwork as being imprisoned like them and subjected to the same restrictions and seemingly arbitrary processes of approval or disappearance.

The transfer to Oman of al-Alwi and his artwork releases both from those processes. It also creates an opportunity to inform the public about what Guantánamo meant to those who were held there, and to the 15 men who remain.

Alexandra Moore, professor of Human Rights in Literary and Cultural Studies, Binghamton University, State University of New York and Elizabeth Swanson, professor of Arts & Humanities, Babson College.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.

Poet, Filmmaker And Activist Tarun Bhartiya Passes Away; His Art Lives on

Tarun Bhartiya was a man of many talents. His wide range of work reflects his profound dedication towards social issues and a resistance to the unjust policies of the government.

New Delhi: Famous filmmaker, poet and social activist Tarun Bhartiya passed away on Saturday morning of a massive heart attack. Tarun’s death has created a void in the field of art, literature and in social circles.

A web portal Meghalaya Monitor has quoted his friends as saying that 55-year-old Tarun was rushed to Woodland Hospital in Shillong, where he was declared dead. He is survived by his wife Angela Rangad and their three children – a daughter and two sons.

Tarun Bhartiya was a man of many talents. His works reflect his profound dedication towards social issues and a resistance to the unjust policies of the government. Tarun had a unique voice related to public concerns, which resonated in his work.

He articulated his ideas through poetry in Hindi, while his documentaries highlighted issues around environment and human rights. Hailing from Bihar, he eventually chose to settle in Meghalaya. His black and white photography conveyed the intricate socio-cultural landscape of Meghalaya to audiences across the nation.

The images captured by him were showcased in exhibitions throughout the country. They were effectively captured and conveyed the scenery of the Northeast and the compelling narratives of its inhabitants.

A black and white photograph by Tarun Bhartiya. Source: X/@LudditeNed

Tarun has edited numerous award-winning films. In 2009, he was bestowed the National Award for editing ‘In Camera, Diaries of a Documentary Cameraman,’ a film directed by Ranjan Palith.

In 2015, he returned his Silver Lotus Award to President Pranab Mukherjee as a form of protest against the increasing intolerance within the country. During this period, Tarun publicly expressed his opposition to the government through his works.

Tarun was a founding member of Alt-Space. He created a space for the unrestricted exchange of independent ideas besides engaging in cultural and political discussions. His website RAIOT serves as a reflection of society, culture and tradition.

Tarun dedicated the last thirteen years to the Niam/Faith/Hynñiewtrep photography project. His objective was to explore the complexities surrounding the Khasi-Jaintia community’s debates on matters of faith, identity, and the process of nation-building.

Tarun recently played an important role in establishing Shillong Humanists, an organisation dedicated to fostering critical thinking and intellectual discourse. This initiative, launched with the involvement of several prominent personalities, seeks to provide a platform for meaningful discussions on contemporary social and political issues. The group’s second meeting is set to take place on January 26.

Condolence messages are pouring in from across the country on the death of Tarun Bhartiya. People remember him as a brilliant photographer, a great documentary editor, a voice of the people, a political activist and a rational human being.

His commitment to showcasing the nuances of life in the Northeast, along with his endeavours to bridge the gap between the artist and the political activist, has established a lasting legacy.

Tarun’s work will continue to remind us of the power of art to shape society and promote critical thought.

‘Complainant Herself Publicised Images’: Art Gallery on ‘Offensive’ M.F. Husain Paintings

A Delhi court is hearing a complaint by a lawyer on two of Husain’s paintings which she felt hurt her religious sentiments.

New Delhi: Two days after a court ordered the seizure of two paintings by M.F. Husain because a complainant found them “offensive”, the art gallery which displayed them has issued a statement denying any wrongdoing and expressing confidence that the judicial process would deliver “a just and fair result”.

The court on January 20 gave police permission to seize two paintings featuring two Hindu deities, Hanuman and Ganesha, holding nude female characters in hands and on the lap. The order came after Delhi high court advocate Amita Sachdeva, filed a complaint, alleging that the “offensive” paintings had hurt her “hurt religious sentiments”.

Husain, one of India’s most renowned artists, died in 2011. In late October 2024, Delhi Art Gallery (DAG) opened Husain: The Timeless Modernist in New Delhi. The exhibition featured a collection of works that dealt with different phases of Husain’s artistic journey from the 1950s to the 2000s.

The DAG said that the investigation took 40 days, during which police reviewed evidence collected from DAG, including the artworks.

Following this, “the police reported to the Judicial Magistrate on January 20 that no cognisable offence has been found to be committed by DAG,” the art gallery said.

While DAG has maintained this, reports also noted that the Delhi Police, along with filing an action taken report (ATR) on January 22, informed the court that the artworks were taken from the art gallery, which was a “private space” and were now lying with the police.

Hindustan Times has reported that during the hearing, advocate Makrand Adkar, appearing for Sachdeva, took objection to the police describing the gallery as a private space because it was opened to the public and advertised to that effect.

DAG noted that the exhibition saw about 5,000 visitors and had received “positive reviews in the press as well as from the public”. It stressed that Sachdeva was the only one among those visitors who found the paintings offensive.

“Given its implicit belief in artistic freedom, DAG denies any wrongdoing as alleged by the complainant who has publicly claimed to be principally driven by a religious agenda (https://x.com/SachdevaAmita). In fact, the complainant has herself displayed and publicised the images of the drawings over social media and television news media deliberately intending them to be viewed by a larger audience, while contending that the same images hurt her personal religious sentiments,” it said.

Judicial magistrate first class Sahil Monga has reserved verdict.

“We are given to understand that the Judicial Magistrate has reserved his decision today on the complainant’s application for the registration of an FIR against DAG. The copy of this decision is awaited and DAG shall address its contents once it is made available by the court. In any event, DAG is confident that the judicial process will eventually deliver a just and fair result.”

In the past, India’s Supreme Court has criticised attempts to criminalise art, including Husian’s, by calling it ‘obscene’.

Exam Warriors Festival: Using Art Not for Creativity but to Programme Young Minds

Held in Delhi’s diplomatic enclave lawns, the festival was built around the PM’s book aimed at the young. But it was less about encouraging creativity and more about promoting a personality cult and a homogenous worldview.

On most days, the vast expanse of the lawns abutting Shanti Path, the traffic artery running through the heart of Delhi’s diplomatic enclave, wears a deserted look. However, on January 4, 2025, city commuters encountered an altogether contrasting and somewhat incongruous sight. Lined up along the edge of the green belt, and facing the road, were painting easels with canvases, on which ‘artists’ were demonstrating their skills, under the gaze of cameras. Their every gesture was being relayed onto strategically displayed LED screens and the one that caught the eye was that of Padma Bhushan Jatin Das painting a pink flamingo, wearing his signature beret, a signifier of his artistic credentials.

Padma Bhushan Jatin Das participating in the Exam Warriors Art Festival, Shanti Path, New Delhi, January 4, 2025. Photo: Shukla Sawant

Surrounded by a police cordon and under the gaze of their teachers and artists as chief guests, thousands of students squatted on orange and green carpets. A portable table loaded with art materials was placed in front of them. Each youngster had a copy of a book authored by Prime Minister Narendra Modi titled Exam Warriors. Its cover was adorned with bubbly cartoons.

Exam Warriors book cover, 2018 edition. Source: X/@examwarriors

Multiple sound amplifiers punctuated the carefully orchestrated space, augmenting the vocal instructions of the chief guests on a specially erected stage, positioned some distance away from the students. The most important guest, though, was the prime minister himself, who, at one point, marked his ‘appearance’ through a recorded message as well as a cartoon representation on an LED screen.

The students, who were dressed in identical white, sleeveless battle-jackets, also adorned with cartoons, had been assembled from schools run by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), which is a Union government-controlled local body. Neatly grouped into rows, with placards announcing their school’s location in the city, the students had been brought to Shanti Path to participate in the Exam Warriors Art Festival. They were there to learn the “mantras” of destressing when faced with the prospect of a school exam that could then also be extended to the trials one faces in life.

The first edition of the annual festival, organised in 2022, was held in the confines of the Talkatora Stadium, a venue earmarked for competitive sporting events. This year’s move to make a visible statement was perhaps less about exposing the youngsters to an afternoon of sunshine and more about turning it into a parade ground for parliamentarians to enact their fondness for children. Even though it was outdoors, the festival was certainly not an engagement with plein-air painting (taking the act of painting out of the studio, with the landscape as the subject) – everyone involved was expected to paint in response to the ostensibly spellbinding content of the book Exam Warriors and its online world, accessible through a QR Code.

The book that is the fulcrum of the Exam Warriors art festivals and its online world, is now into its second edition. It was first published in 2018. Declared a best seller and available in multiple Indian languages, its second edition has a newly designed cover.

Exam Warriors book cover, 2021 revised edition. Source: X/@examwarriors

While the old cover showed the prime minister flagging off a race, led by the proverbial hare speeding ahead on a hoverboard-like contraption, the new cover is a little different. The front cover shows the hare (or is it a white rabbit, popular in the domestic pet industry, bred for its albinism and unable to survive in the rough and tumble of a jungle?) morphed into a Pied-Piper playing a flute, as youngsters with backpacks twirl a football and carry giant replicas of writing instruments as they follow the hare. They are waved on by what looks like a cartoon representation of the prime minister.

The book cover also has an image of a girl in the background, twiddling a remote control set as if she is manipulating a flying drone. It is a nod to the Union government’s newly launched “drone didi” scheme. The scheme, we are told, aims to train women’s Self Help Groups in drone technology so that they can provide services in the field of agriculture, such as crop monitoring, among others.

Artists participating in the Exam Warriors Art Festival, Shanti Path, New Delhi, January 4, 2025. Photo: Shukla Sawant

Clearly, the message of reckless over-confidence leading to failure that Aesop’s fable of the hare and tortoise gives, or the Brothers Grimm story of a Pied Piper from Hamelin leading children into a perilous situation, has been lost in translation. In fact, the back cover of the book shows what looks like a caricature of the prime minister, with his arm around the shoulder of the hare/rabbit/Pied Piper, leaving one wondering if there are any real-life parallels there.

The book illustrations offer more specious images – youngsters can be seen using an array of spiffy personal mobility devices that one is more likely to come across on a Hawaiian beach getaway than in India’s congested streets or rural environs with their rundown roads. Presupposing a certain class location of students and a complete ignorance of ground realities, the images show children rollerblading, skateboarding and scuba diving or else diving into a swimming pool, rock-climbing using state of the art safety gear, and using a play-station to interact with screen-based entertainment forms.

LED screens promoting the book Exam Warriors authored by the prime minister, Shanti Path, New Delhi, January 4, 2025. Photo: Shukla Sawant

Every section of the book, titled “mantra”, has an activity page appended to it and invites written responses by scanning an impassive QR code.

What is not transparent is how this data so gathered will eventually be used. In a scenario where elections are won based on data-driven messaging, tapping into Google Analytics and other tools that track scans from QR codes, engagement time with websites and even networked screen interfaces used to access information, this art festival positioned around a book, requires greater scrutiny. The dispersed geometric abstraction of a QR code is, after all, also the sieve of an ideological project that enables data collection in a user-friendly manner, from an age group that will form a large voting block in the next election cycle.

Students drawing from themes based on Exam Warriors, a book authored by the prime minister, Shanti Path, New Delhi, January 4, 2025. Photo: Shukla Sawant

“Art” as a recognisable cultural category, it seems, needs to be mobilised for what it has come to signify, namely creativity and autonomy, so it can obfuscate how young minds can, in fact, be programmed.

The book’s promotional activities since its first edition have always involved art-related activities, be it the Pariksha Pe Charcha – On The Spot Art and Painting Competitions that have been organised for several years across the country, or the roping in of recognisable names from the creative field to embellish such events. The total lack of self-reflexivity by participating artists only shows how easy it is today to be co-opted into projects where publicity of the self becomes the singular life goal, as a paid for ‘influencer’ culture becomes a widespread phenomenon.

Publicised widely through social media platforms, the strategy to channelise “art” to capture the minds of the young has been a particularly well-funded project of the current political dispensation. Vast budgets are being set aside to use the National Gallery of Modern Art and the Lalit Kala Akademi as propaganda machines, to enhance the Modi personality cult through exhibitions, conferences and workshops. A relentless barrage of information is put out, while captive audiences of government employees and school students are routinely herded to such events to make up the numbers to create an impression of widespread and willing participation in these otherwise ennui inducing occasions.

Not much critical attention is being paid to the programming of these institutional spaces, that are otherwise being hollowed out from the inside. The National Gallery of Modern Art, for instance, has not had a functioning library for years. Closed during the pandemic, and then for renovations, it has been shut down again after reopening. The renovations were so shoddy that the floorboards came off within a short span of the library’s reopening. This despite the fact that cultural organisations in Delhi are the second biggest beneficiaries of funding after the Rama Krishna Mission, Kolkata from the Union government as indicated by official data available online.

The chart shows an allocation of Rs 276.25 lacs to Delhi-based cultural organisations. The highest outlay is to the R.K Mission, West Bengal. Source: Answer to Rajya Sabha question

Discussions on remaking of society through art abound in art historical discourse. The term avant-garde associated with artistic rebellion and resistance, after all, has its origins in the military formation of the advanced guard of an army, except that it refers to an aesthetic or intellectual breakthrough. Now thoroughly domesticated by the advertising industry, a political formation like the one currently in power at the centre, which thrives through its mastery of publicity, uses the word “warrior” frequently, wherein every social project is a cleverly disguised, belligerent majoritarian confrontation, to obtain ‘consensual’ domination.

Shukla Sawant teaches art history and visual studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

Vikram Sarabhai International Arts Festival: An Exploration of ‘Self’ Through Artistic Expressions

The three-day festival, held from from December 28 to 30, captured the essence of human agency and self-discovery.

The netizens and art enthusiasts of Ahmedabad eagerly wait for winter to attend festivals like Saptak, Abhivyakti and Kukdukoo, among others. Recently, I attended the 45th edition of the Vikram Sarabhai International Arts Festival from December 28 to 30, organised by the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts and featuring celebrated artists, activists, classical dancers, directors and composers from across the world. The iconic three-day festival’s uniqueness lies in its consistent commitment to expressing human emotions through literature while seamlessly blending tradition with innovation. This year, it embraced the theme of exploring “self” as an agency, weaving together diverse genres and artistic expressions from European and South Asian literature and cinema.

For anyone who grew up watching Bollywood films, the recurring theme of chasing dreams in a big city resonates deeply. From Nehruvian cinema to the late 90s, films have intricately woven the city into their narratives, blending its challenges and desires with the passage of time and creating timeless tales of ambition and transformation – almost like how Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities features Marco Polo describing imagined cities to Kublai Khan, exploring themes of memory, desire and perception.

Unveiling urban paradoxes: Dichotomies of urban dreams and realities

The first day’s show opened with the play Meanwhile Elsewhere in Hindi, English, Italian and Gujarati. After the opening musical melody, the play featured four major plots in which Khan’s sleepy condition in the background dreamt up the mystery of the tale, which hinged the dialogue at the birth, growth and survival of human beings.

The very next scene of the performance was dedicated to the daily occurrences of city life itself – streets and food stalls being cleaned, barbers at work as well as city announcements to capture the idea of invisible connectivity among the citizens. The play revolves around four duos, each exploring different facets of the city and how its shifts bring both hope and despair. Through interconnected dialogues, the play weaves a narrative of the city as a paradoxical space – a place where hope and hopelessness coexist, where dreams are born, yet often tempered by reality.

Meanwhile Elsewhere. Photo: Tasnim Bharmal

A young man and woman, determined to start life in a city, find themselves grappling with the challenges of urban life. Their struggle to fit into the open-ended framework of societal expectations was powerfully portrayed, highlighting issues like identity, gender, race and the pressures of modern life. The anxiety over dissolving individuality into the city’s demands contrasts sharply with dreams, echoing the harsh realities faced by migrants in cities and resonating deeply with contemporary city issues of housing, traffic, quality of air etc. In parallel, a father-daughter duo explore the complexities of time and space, and life and death. In another frame, a Muslim truck driver’s story highlighted the struggles of “outsiders” in urban life.

The director of the play, Yadavan Chandran, continues to delve into nostalgia, emotions and memories of cities. Drawing from Marco Polo, he portrays cities as interpretations shaped by human experiences. The dialogues, “somehow my footsteps lead me here” and “in my dreams, I never sleep,” symbolise involuntary connection and boundless aspiration. Highlighting urban life’s dualities, Chandran told The Wire, “Relationships survive; humans don’t,” underscoring the lasting significance of human connections amidst their fleeting existence. Marco’s narration of 55 imaginary cities was intertwined with a poignant transition to 90s Ahmedabad as Mallika Sarabhai reflected on her St. Xavier’s days, cultural icons and vanished landmarks in conversation with her friend. Earlier, the play Kadak Badshahi, written and directed by the same artist, commemorated Ahmedabad’s 600th anniversary.

Mahabharata as a modern opera

The next day, the opera of Heroes And Gods inspired by the Mahabharata made Edoardo Catemario’s production an unprecedented addition to Ahmedabad’s cultural landscape. The theatre was packed as Catemario opened the play with a lyrical, instrumental piece that set the tone for the evening. The central theme, “Time as an essential placement of faith in the Mahabharata,” was introduced through a powerful monologue by Mallika and her team, followed by the song Who Am I? capturing the hero’s self-discovery from Mahabharata‘s characters like Yudhishthira, Arjuna, Karna, Bhishma and Duryodhana.

The opera masterfully shifted the audience’s perception, from karma as fate to time as a dynamic force shaping decisions. The narrative focused on two pivotal characters, Draupadi and Arjuna, alongside key chapters of the Mahabharata, including Draupadi’s swayamvara, the gambling game between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, the cheerharan (disrobing of Draupadi) and at last, the war. These moments were rendered through engaging monologues from the Mahabharata and songs blending the ancient tale with modern essence.

Draupadi’s character emerged as a powerful, self-decisive goddess, reclaiming her agency and wisdom in many scenes. The song dedicated to her reinforced her courage, highlighting her contentious wisdom without seeking help from any deity or spirit. In contrast, Arjuna, despite being a prince with the power to shape his future and kingdom, relied on Krishna’s guidance for critical decisions. This is actually what the director wanted to convey to the audience as during the post-performance conversation, he shared that he chose to retell the Mahabharata as an artist to pursue one of his dreams and aspirations he had long cherished since he was in music school.

The opera, ‘of Heroes And Gods’. Photo: Tasnim Bharmal

Further, reflecting on his scepticism, he highlighted how Italy’s art schools have been dominated by English plays for over 150 years, leaving little room for other cultural narratives to emerge. He described it as a journey outwardly vocal yet inwardly introspective. Using Arjuna as an example, he illustrated how one wrestles with reasons to avoid violence in any form. Such negotiations with the “self,” Catemario explained, are the essence of Dharma.

The show skillfully explored how fundamental aspects of “self” often overshadowed vision and agency. The modern interpretation of the Mahabharata delved into the nuanced struggles of faith, time and self-discovery. By reimagining these ancient characters and themes, the opera brought relevance to timeless questions, leaving a profound impact.

Blending philosophy, art and human expression

On the last day, a powerful rendition by Sona Mohapatra – who captured hearts nationwide when she performed Mujhe Kya Bechega Rupaiya on Aamir Khan’s iconic show Satyamev Jayate – struck a chord with the audience, addressing deep societal issues with unmatched passion. That performance not only showcased her vocal prowess but also established her as a voice of empowerment and change. Through her live performance, Mohapatra exemplified individuality, resilience and self-expression, as reflected in the diverse range of songs she has performed – from Bollywood to her own compositions.

Musical night featuring Sona Mohapatra. Photo: Tasnim Bharmal

The festival wound up with a profound exploration of the concept of “empowered self,” echoing philosopher Immanuel Kant’s idea. Each performance encapsulated this essence, weaving together stunning costumes, boundless energy and unforgettable experiences.

Tasnim Bharmal is a research consultant at Indian Institute for Human Settlements and an associate in the Arts & Social Science Department at Ahmedabad University.

Bangladeshi Modern Art Starts Its Revolution – From a Basement

A revival of long-neglected artistic treasures is afoot, amidst dramatic political change.

For decades in Bangladesh, hundreds of paintings by the country’s leading artist gathered dust in institutional storage, while the government spent a fortune on artistic tributes to ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Today, in the wake of last summer’s student-led uprising, the new director of Fine Arts at Dhaka’s Shilpokala Academy is beginning to promote that unseen collection of modern art worth tens of millions of dollars. But he has also inherited a bizarre new collection he doesn’t want to exhibit: more than 3,000 paintings of Sheikh Hasina, her family, and her infrastructure projects.

The Bangladesh Shilpokala Academy Vaults. Photo Cyrus Naji.

In November, Mustafa Zaman found an army camp inside the Shilpokala Academy, an all-purpose government cultural centre. Because of its convenient location – near Dhaka University – it had been used by the previous regime for cracking down on the student protests that erupted in July.

An infantry battalion was stationed in the Academy’s spacious compound, with armoured vehicles parked inside its open-air theatre. “A brigadier was billeted in my office because it has an attached bathroom,” he says, while troops erected camp beds in the ground-floor sculpture galleries. Five months on, they are still there.

‘Troops erected camp beds in the ground-floor sculpture galleries’. The Bangladesh Shilpokala Academy Vaults. Photo: Cyrus Naji.

Since the fall of the government in August, a revolution has been afoot in the cultural sector, with symbols of the old regime dramatically destroyed and figures seen as close to it swiftly replaced. With statues of the ruling family under attack across the country, Zaman relegated hundreds of sycophantic portraits of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the “Father of the Nation”, to the Academy’s basement.

Mujibur Rahman’s painting and bust in the Bangladesh Shilpokala Academy vaults. Photo: Cyrus Naji.

“I don’t know what to do with them, they take up a lot of space,” he says. Reports indicate that the former government spent more than $100 million on thousands of memorials to Mujib across the country; most now lie in rubble after the “Monsoon Revolution”.

But Zaman has a different priority: the revival of the country’s unique artistic heritage. He has begun to sort through the Fine Arts department’s storage unit, containing thousands of modernist paintings, gathering dust in stacks. Few have been on public display in recent memory.

Photo source: From Zainul’s ‘Monpura’ Series in the collection of the Bangladesh National Museum.

Drawing from this collection, he plans to inaugurate a permanent exhibition, showcasing Bangladeshi Modernist art. Pride of place will be given to four works in the Academy’s collection by Zainul Abedin, Bangladesh’s best-known modern artist, who died in 1976 and is highly sought-after on the international art market. But hundreds more of the best paintings lie out of his control; they continue to rot in the damp vaults of the National Museum, a short walk away.

“Every rickshaw driver on the street knows Zainul Abedin”, says artist and curator Amirul Rajiv of the pioneering modernist painter, whose works adorn Bangladeshi bank-notes and passports.

Photo source: From Zainul’s ‘Monpura’ Series in the collection of the Bangladesh National Museum.

Abedin trained in then Calcutta and set up an Art College in Dhaka after the Partition of India in 1947. It went on to train a generation of fine artists, who shared an artistic lineage with their Indian colleagues, but innovated a unique strand of global modernism, rooted in the political and cultural context of East Bengal, which became Bangladesh in 1971. “Zainul was our Picasso,” says Ebadur Rahman, convenor of a new museum commemorating the July uprising. “He had a vision.”

But in Bangladesh hundreds of his and other artists’ works were hidden away in damp museum basements, and their legacies forgotten over decades of mismanagement of the cultural sector. “These people didn’t know what a treasure trove they had; they squandered it away,” says Rahman.

Zainul Abedin paintings from the ‘Monpura’ series in the Shilpakala Academy vaults. Photo: Cyrus Naji.

Meanwhile, independent-minded contemporary artists found their opportunities constricted under Hasina. “Artists suffered over the last 15 years,” says Zaman.

The new head of the culture ministry, filmmaker Mustafa Sarwar Farooki, was appointed by the interim government’s chief advisor, Nobel-laureate Muhammad Yunus in November. Farooki has set about righting decades of mismanagement. “It’s a matter of shame that all our master painters’ works were dumped in a storeroom,” he said. “it breaks my heart.”

‘These people didn’t know what a treasure trove they had’. The Bangladesh Shilpokala Academy Vaults. Photo: Cyrus Naji.

Zainul Abedin paintings from the ‘Monpura’ series in the Shilpakala Academy vaults. Photo: Cyrus Naji.

With institutions in the grips of a cult of personality dedicated to Sheikh Hasina’s family, very little investment or attention was given to the country’s artistic heritage. “Our culture ministries never knew what their job was,” he says. “They didn’t care.”

But wealthy collectors in Bangladesh and abroad have valued what the government forgot; in recent years, prices for Bangladeshi art have soared at auction. A 1970 sketch by Zainul Abedin, depicting a dead body, sold this September at Sotheby’s in London for over half a million pounds, one of five works by the artist to have fetched prices in six digits in the last year.

And with fierce competition in the private market, the government collection of 807 paintings by Zainul Abedin and hundreds more by his contemporaries including Quamrul Hasan and S.M. Sultan must rank as one of the country’s most valuable assets.

Photo source: From Zainul’s ‘Monpura’ Series in the collection of the Bangladesh National Museum.

Abedin’s family sold 758 works to the museum at a nominal fee in the 1980s. “My father painted things that resonate with the people of this country,” says the artist’s son, Mainul Abedin.

“After his death, the Smithsonian wanted to buy all his paintings, but we thought it would be a disgrace if they left the country. But its very sad- we have no idea how they’re being kept.”

The the paintings are now on display in just one room of the museum, with the rest in storage a unit, which lacks a dehumidifier to combat Dhaka famously steamy climate; for years, it reportedly also lacked an air conditioner.

Zainul Abedin paintings from the ‘Monpura’ series in the Shilpakala Academy vaults. Photo: Cyrus Naji.

Zainul Abedin paintings from the ‘Monpura’ series in the Shilpakala Academy vaults. Photo: Cyrus Naji.

Now Farooki hopes to see a revival of the arts in Bangladesh, in part by reforming the country’s approach to cultural heritage: “It’s a total shambles,” he adds. “We need to change the way we preserve things.”

But, amidst an uncertain political and security situation in the country – where the police are still not fully functional – visitors to the Academy will have to cross lines of armoured vehicles. And, as Zaman struggles with bureaucratic hurdles at the Shilpokala, the world’s most valuable collection of Bengali art continues to languish unseen in the storage of the National Museum.

Cyrus Naji is a writer and researcher, currently working in Bangladesh.

How a Boston Museum Inspired Pakistan’s First Hand-Drawn Animation Film

Artistic vision in a beloved Boston museum sparked the creation of ‘The Glassworker,’ the acclaimed anti-war animated film which brings shared cultural heritage, and a universal message about violent conflict, to life on the big screen.

In the heart of Boston lies the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a treasure trove of art, history, and inspiration. Its Venetian-style architecture, intricate sculptures, and thoughtfully curated collections have captivated visitors for over a century.

Among those inspired when they came across it during their college years in Boston were two young Pakistanis, Usman Riaz and Mariam Paracha, studying at the Berklee College of Music and Emerson College respectively, a few years apart during the early 2010s.

Their admiration for the museum planted the seeds for The Glassworker – Sheesha Gar in Urdu – Pakistan’s first hand-drawn animated feature film and Pakistan’s official submission to the 2025 Oscars.

Born in New York in 1840, Isabella Stewart Gardner was a collector who wanted to make art available to everyone. She envisioned a space that would immerse visitors in beauty and creativity. This vision has now inspired a story deeply rooted in Southasian culture and influenced by her legacy.

Talking to Sapan News during a visit to Boston recently, Mariam Paracha reflected on the museum’s impact. Isabella Stewart Gardner “didn’t just collect art,” she said, but also “created a narrative. That’s what we wanted to achieve with The Glassworker — to make each frame of the film a work of art that contributes to the story.”

This commitment to craftsmanship is evident in The Glassworker, a hand-drawn animated anti-war romantic drama produced by Mano Animation Studios, founded in 2015 by Riaz in his native Karachi. The film’s aesthetic draws from Japanese anime and the works of Studio Ghibli, the well-known animation studio based in Koganei, a city in Japan. Its soul — the meticulous attention to detail, emotional depth, and atmosphere — owes much to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Art, war, passion

The film follows Vincent, a young glass artisan, and Alliz, a violinist, as they navigate a world on the brink of war. Their relationship, defined by their shared passion for art, unfolds amidst the tensions between their fathers, who represent opposing sides of the conflict.

The story’s universality lies in its exploration of intergenerational conflict, personal growth, and the courage to forge one’s path.

The film uses a non-specific geopolitical context set in the fictional Waterfront Town. However, parallels to British-Indian history are evident because of dress styles, characters’ names, shop interiors and the market’s exterior. Its magical realist elements, like the presence of a djinn, add a layer of mystique without overshadowing the core narrative.

When I saw the film at a sold-out show at a cinema run by Emerson College, I was struck by the patience involved in the art of hand-drawn animation in the film, which creates a parallel to the film’s lead character and his glassmaking, crafting elegant, handmade artefacts, every inch infused with love.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Photo by Pragyan Srivastava

To maintain authenticity, the filmmakers visited an actual glasswork factory, creating detailed visual references for the film’s stunning visuals, Paracha told me when we met at Emerson College later. She showed me on her laptop how their team mapped the imaginary city featured in the film, merging meticulous research with artistic imagination.

The Glassworker took almost a decade to complete, reflecting the patience and dedication required in traditional glassmaking. The influence of Studio Ghibli, particularly Hayao Miyazaki’s works like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, is unmistakable. However, the film carves its own identity, blending anime aesthetics with a touch of nostalgia.

The influence of steampunk is also evident — a genre that is futuristic yet retro at the same time, blending the aesthetic and technology of the 19th century with science fiction elements.

Each frame emphasises detail, from the naturalistic portrayal of light and shadow to the textures of glass, clothing, and architectural elements. The anime aesthetic shines in its ability to communicate emotion through subtle gestures, facial expressions, and atmospheric backdrops. For instance, quiet moments between the characters are amplified by the interplay of light streaming through stained-glass windows or reflections on polished glass surfaces.

The story is set against the backdrop of a world transitioning between traditional craftsmanship – glassmaking – and the encroaching industrial era. This tension is a hallmark of steampunk narratives, which often explore the relationship between artisanal creativity and mechanical innovation. From the glassblowing tools to the machinery glimpsed in the town, there is a subtle presence of industrial design. The gears, levers, and metallic components echo the steampunk fascination with Victorian-era technology.

Like many steampunk stories, The Glassworker addresses the social implications of modernisation. The protagonist’s art — a deeply traditional craft — is threatened by political tensions and industrialisation, much like steampunk narratives often juxtapose personal stories against larger societal upheaval.

Riaz’s journey to create this masterpiece took him around the world in search of mentors, including a visit to Studio Ghibli. This global perspective enriched the film, positioning it as a bridge between cultures and generations.

“We see The Glassworker as not just a film but a bridge between traditional art forms and modern storytelling,” Paracha explained.

The mesmerising musical score composed by Riaz blends classical and contemporary styles that complement the film’s rich visuals.

The connection between Isabella Stewart Gardner and two Pakistani filmmakers highlights the universal power of art. As Gardner’s museum inspires visitors, The Glassworker seeks to expand Pakistani cinema and animation, globally presenting the country’s artistic heritage. This project demonstrates the transformative power of art and cross-cultural inspiration, reflecting Gardner’s vision of creativity transcending boundaries.

The story, while fictional, mirrors the filmmakers’ own journey — marked by resilience, meticulous craftsmanship, and a deep respect for tradition. Like the intricate glasswork depicted in the film, The Glassworker is a labour of love, a testament to the art of storytelling and the magic of hand-drawn animation.

Documentary: The Making of The Glassworker

Pragyan Srivastava is a journalist from India currently based in Cambridge MA. She is a Fulbright-Nehru 2024 Master’s scholar at Rutgers University.

This is a Sapan News syndicated feature.