INVALID (2016)

Performance piece titled “INVALID”, part of the show namely “The 70s: Pakistan’s Radioactive Decade” at the Amin Gulgee Gallery 

Invalidation, rejection, refusal, dismissal. All these words refer to the act of being denied and this denial, be it in any form, can have disastrous consequences for one’s psychological well-being that goes well beyond mere emotional pain.

In this performance piece for the 70’s show at the Amin Gulgee Gallery, I portrayed the worst form of exclusion i.e. social rejection whereby a person or a group of people are dismissed from a social relationship.

This form of non-acceptance takes us back into the 1970’s and to the events which resulted in the division of our state. Pakistan broke up and a new state was born. 

In this piece, I am rendering myself INVALID in an attempt to express the magnitude of violence of such events – where identities were shattered and recreated. The act of stamping on human skin in itself is an excruciating act in terms of noise and pain. The first half an hr or so of the three hour long performance was troublesome as the ordeal took its toll on me but gradually the body adapted to it becoming numb, the way anybody reacts to prolonged suffering i.e. it internalizes pain and misery. Towards the end, my skin is entirely covered with the ink of the stamps and yet barely manages to capture the collective human suffering of the time.