Wandering the City: Farida Batool on History and Practice

For Lahore-based artist, Farida Batool, her city has been an integral part of her research and work. Apart from investigating its architectural layout, Batool engages with the cultural fabric, communities and socio-political nuances of the city to make Lahore a recurring protagonist in her narratives.

Alongside the detailed historical texts and geographical research that the artist discusses in this conversation, she also highlights the placement of her body and self in her works with a specific reference to her lenticular print work Kahani Eik Shehr Ki (Story of a City, 2012). In a visually layered articulation, Batool reveals the socio-cultural presence of women in a largely male-dominated space. This is evident through the presence of a lone female figure walking past male-dominated shops and activities in Lahore. The viewer is taken through the streets, graffiti, archives and waterways of Lahore through the positioning of a woman, who desires to reclaim these urban spaces.

In this continued conversation, Batool also talks about the recently published monograph titled & She Wandered… which covers three decades of her practice as an artist. This compilation of essays and interviews—by artists such as Masooma Syed and Salima Hashmi as well as scholars such as Shaila Bhatti and Christopher Pinney—also contextualises the broader dialogue of art history within South Asia.

_{(Featured Image: Yunhi Koi Chalte Chaltey. Lahore, 2016. Lenticular Print.)}

Interview taken on 07 August 2021

In case you missed the first part of this conversation, please click here.

All images featured in the video are works by Farida Batool. Images courtesy of the artist.