The house of Salima Hashmi in the high -end district of the city of Lahore is a large Raj era bungalow filled with burst With a cultural size of art, family photos and books lining countless shelves. But despite being where the artist, The teacher and the curator have lived for over 55 years, the house is not a room in the museum. Hashmi and his family tend to a cultural flame that projects a wider light through South Asia and the wider world.
An airy veranda leads to a corridor, where the windows of green fanlight project a serene light in a labyrinth of rooms. Unlike the other houses in the neighborhood, Hashmi's has retained its “typical British brings” arrangement, with two main and discreet reception rooms Listor workspaces, on each side of the veranda.
At 82, Hashmi continues to create the works of mixed media that brought him to importance, which merges staff with the themes of social justice and the fate of women. It remains a force in the artistic scene in the cultural capital of Pakistan and continues to bring the art and artists of South Asia to an international scene. And in her decades of teaching – at the National College of Arts in Lahore before becoming dean at the School of Visual Arts and Design from the National University of Beaconhouse – she supervised some of the most renowned artists in the country, including Shahzia Sikander, Imran Qureshi and Aisha Khalid. Unsurprisingly, the back of his house includes an art gallery, open to the public, in what was a garage. The works of the Pakistani artist based in Brooklyn, Ruby Chishti, are currently presented.
From an armchair near the fireplace in the living room, Hashmi greets me by wearing pants and chic but chic Kurta, a draped scarf on a shoulder, bracelets and yellow canari yellow moccasins with socks with colorful patterns reminiscent of a painting by Joan Miró. “In Pakistan, we have introduced some of those who have become the stars of the art world,” said Hashmi, serving tea, nuts and savory dates.
The house was built around 1929-1930 by the grandfather of the deceased husband of Hashmi, judge, she said to me. His family already had a house in the old town of Lahore, and Model Town emerged like a suburb for the rich professionals of the city. Today, this is one of the most wealthy constituencies in Lahore; Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is one of those who have a house here. Hashmi and her husband moved here in 1969, and the room quickly became “a refuge, an animated meeting center for artists, writers, political personalities and a refuge for activists,” said Hashmi, including the chief of the left Mazdoor Kisan in the 1970s and women whose families had noted them because of their relations with people of different sects.
Hashmi comes from a family of cultural and political agitators: Pakistani intellectuals on the left whose views have repeatedly in hot water. His father, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, was a renowned poet; Her late husband shoaib Hashmi, who died in 2023, was an eminent artist, director and television writer who created the satirical television program Such a Gup (L'Ourdou is about “truth and gossip”).
She herself comes from co-organized an exhibition at the London's School of Oriental and African Studies- (One) Superimposing the past future of South Asia: the voices of young artists – Presenting the work of the Afghan artist exiled Sher Ali. One of the multiple Hashmi Porte hats is director of the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh, which manages a scholarship program for students from all South Asia.
The art gallery in his own house is part of a series of domestic reimaginations established by the couple when they became their guards. “We have added new shelters, made cupboards and discovered small hidden holes and made them corners to contemplate the world,” said Hashmi, guiding me through the main corridor, where paintings, drawings and photos, having filled all the wall space, spreading over the tables.
She underlines a portrait of her father by the Indian photographer Raghu Rai. He had moved the Delhi family to Lahore in February 1947, on the eve of the score, and created Pakistan Times; He spent five years in prison in the early 1950s for his revolutionary opinions, she told me.
“And it's my wedding photo,” said Hashmi, pointing a black and white photo. The couple met on the set of a student production in Ourdou She leans to conquer In the early 1960s. They got married in 1965.
The couple settled in the rich cultural scene of Lahore, but at different times, everyone faced repercussions for their political activism. In 1981, Shoaib spent three months in prison-with journalists, politicians and lawyers considered to be a “threat to public security” during the martial law of the dictator ZIA-UL-HAQ. In 2007, Hashmi was one of the many eminent Pakistani women under house arrest for about two weeks when Pervez Musharraf declared the state of emergency and suspended the constitution of the country.
The main living room is a series of rooms that have been converted to accommodate his son Yasser Hashmi (named Yasser Arafat, she told me) and her family. While we are talking, a little boy emerges-Hashmi's grandson, who, she said proudly, has just won a junior chess championship in Karachi.
On the other side of the room, a similar suite is devoted to her daughter Mira (his name is a derivative of mirThe Russian word for “peace”, and a nod to the 16th century Indian poet Mirabai). Mira is currently based in London while her children attend University in the United Kingdom, but a Sri Lankan artist, Sakunthala, a former Hashmi's student, temporarily lives in the rooms. “I refuse to have a rent,” says Hashmi, “so she sometimes delights us with a Sri Lankan meal.”
Hashmi now takes me a step in a rear living room in the house, with turquoise walls – there are bright colored flashes throughout the house – and bordered by libraries and works of art even more. “This is my kind of private lounge – you know, if I have a student, or an old friend; a quieter and intimate space. ” Behind, there is a kitchen, which the extended family of hashmi sometimes uses. “We only take meals together on Sunday because people have very different hours,” she said, laughing. They also meet for a big “traditional breakfast” to celebrate the two Eid holidays.
Behind the house is a courtyard leading to the Hashmi studio. On a work table filled with painting tubes is a mixed work: a photograph of his family, with applied painting; Part of a series “on the fungibility of the family”, she says. Hashmi has long adopted mixed formats; A way to wonder how art has been traditionally taught and manufactured in South Asia. “I was dissatisfied with oil and canvas for a long time,” she said. “I found it weighing – and the behavior of oil and canvas in the tropic is difficult because it develops in summer.”
The artist has also long questioned the patriarchal standards of Pakistan and was involved in the women's action forum, the only feminist organization which was authorized to work publicly under Zia-Ul-Haq. In 1983, the Hashmi Bungalow Family Fair welcomed a group that signed a manifesto of female artists, a copy of which she displays in the studio – she said: “To discourage me from being frivolous”.
It is a house where some of the objects tell not only stories, but seem to speak. “This house has seen much over 100 years,” she says. “We took it back in 1969 and transformed it – or maybe that changed us.”
“(No) superimposing the past future of South Asia: the voices of young artists”, co-organized by Salima Hashmi; until June 21; Soas.ac.uk
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