Proposals for
a Memorial to
Partition
Curated by Murtaza Vali
Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai
2022/23
The Pak Khawateen Painting Club proposes a museum on Partition that never
takes off. Complexities arising as a result of Partition are often
whitewashed and represent a blind spot in history, with the generation who
experienced the enormity of the event slowly dying away.
Like many government schemes that commence with good intentions and are
often sugar-coated with populist beliefs and panegyric praise, the
Partition Museum is fated to be lost in the annals of history when it
becomes imbricated with the bureaucracy and paper pushing that often
characterises the officialdom of many post-colonial nations. Corruption,
embezzlement and frustrating delays often result in projects being
shelved. The production, circulation and accumulation of paper containing
requests, permissions, sarkari jargon and remonstrations embody the
kafkaesque routes these paper trails take on as they flit from department
to department.
In this satirical re-enactment of pompous governmental rituality we mimic
the protocols, official language and tropes of the
“ sarkar”/establishment.
The Pak Khawateen Painting Club become mediators between the
governmentality of the State and its coded language as their Project
becomes entangled in meaningless, winding chains of correspondence. In
this narrative, banal correspondence becomes entangled with ideology,
culture, agendas and political point scoring; the white elephant
ultimately prevails.