Come check out the gallery space and the minature worlds created by Nimra and Manahil Bandukwala as a part of their Reth aur Reghistan project is presented here at Silence!
On Sunday, January 21st there will be an exhibition reception, a chance to explore the gallery and hear from the artists themselves as they chat with Christina Kingsbury.
Reth Aur Reghistan is a multidisciplinary arts project started by Nimra and Manahil Bandukwala that explores folklore from Pakistan through sculpture, storytelling, and community-engaged arts. In 2019 we researched folklore from Karachi and explored these stories through sculpture and poetry. We use foraged and reclaimed materials, such as pieces from our dadi’s (grandmother) saari, beads from a broken tasbeeh, dried flowers, and shells, to bring to life characters and scenes from these ancestral tales. Nimra creates art with natural materials and strives to keep learning and teaching more craft skills. Manahil is a published poet, writer, and visual artist. Together, we’ve meshed our collective passions into Reth aur Reghistan. To date we have facilitated storytelling and artmaking workshops, published a book, and will be doing an artist residency in Toronto in June 2023.
Our art uses existing materials that carry their own histories. Using natural and found materials allows us to connect with land-based ways of creating. We deeply consider the personal memories embedded within each material as we interpret folktales. For example, we created the figure of Mai Kolachi with shells collected from a beach during childhood trips, close to where her story originated. We dressed the bold sisters Moomal and Soomal in pieces of our dadi’s red sari that she gave us once it tore. Our artistic process values using memory as a creative medium. We retell folktales in a way that is meaningful to the present using pieces from the past.
More about the project can be found on our website: www.sculpturalstorytelling.com.
