Pakistani Authorities Shut Down a Show in the Karachi Biennial That Criticized the Government’s Extrajudicial Killings

An exhibition in the Karachi
Biennial that evoked the extrajudicial killings of hundreds of
people in Pakistan was shut down by authorities in the city on
Sunday, sparking outcry from artists and activists
worldwide. 

In the courtyard of the city’s
historic Frere Hall, Pakistani artist Adeela Suleman mounted
Killing Fields of Karachi, 444 tombstone-like sculptures
topped with wilted metal flowers—one for each victim of a series of
murderous raids led by former senior superintendent of police, Rao
Anwar. 

Inside the hall was a video
piece about Naqeebullah Mehsud, a 27-year-old shopkeeper and
aspiring model who was killed by police last year. Mehsud’s murder
set off protests throughout the country. 

Suleman’s show had only been
open for a few hours when two plainclothes men arrived and
instructed the organizers to close it down. By Monday morning, the
installation in the courtyard had been knocked down, while the door
to exhibition space was sealed with a padlock. Speaking on behalf
of state authorities, the leader of Karachi’s parks
division told Samaa TV that the
exhibition was closed because it considered it “vandalism,” not
art. 

“My work was just a story of
incidents that took place in Karachi around a year ago,” said
Suleman, who also teaches art at the Indus Valley School of Art and
Architecture in Karachi, at a press conference after the censorship
incident. “There was nothing in it that wasn’t already public
knowledge.” Authorities then shut down the conference,
too.

As images of the destroyed
artwork circulated online, supporters took to social media to
express their solidarity with Suleman. A group of activists
staged a
“die-in” at the
Killing Fields of Karachi site, while others attempted to
reinstall the work.

“We are against censorship of
art and believe that expression is very subjective to the viewers
interpretation of the artwork,” read a statement posted by biennale organizers on Facebook.
“With regards to the exhibit in question, we feel that despite the
artist’s perspective, it is not compatible with the ethos of
#KB19, the theme of which is ‘Ecology and the
Environment,’ and we feel that politicizing the platform will go
against our efforts of bringing art to the public and drawing
artists from the fringe to the mainstream cultural
discourse.”

The statement incited new
criticism of the biennale for its organizer’s failure to stand with
Suleman.

“We have seen censorship in the
past, but in recent years things had been better,” Suleman
told ARTnews. “This opened my eyes again. This shows the
power art has in a country like Pakistan—they couldn’t take it for
even two hours. Pakistan can talk about air pollution and water
pollution—but corruption of mind and memory? That will be
censored.”

The post Pakistani Authorities Shut Down a Show in the
Karachi Biennial That Criticized the Government’s Extrajudicial
Killings appeared first on artnet News.