Trans-Pakistan Zindabad (Facts about the Earth), Umber Majeed
OPEN OFFICE.2 + ext.1708gallery.org, Ashley Moody
Curated by Park Myers
1708 Gallery is excited to present two concurrent projects that invite visitors to explore the ways in which artists involve research in their practices. Asolo exhibition by Umber Majeed and a collective project designed by Ashley Moody—with contributions from recent and upcoming exhibiting artists—will expand the notion of offices, headquarters, libraries, desks, and texts.
In Trans-Pakistan Zindabad (Facts about the Earth), Umber Majeed instills her own form of immersivity—her plethora of research materials will envelop the visitor. Atlases in Urdu, children’s books, real estate advertisements, and her uncle’s archives become drawings, interactive web-based media, collage, and vinyl. This installation is a sleek yet glitched and fractured rendering of a re-imagined Trans-Pakistan travel agency headquarters. Trans-Pakistan Zindabad (Facts about the Earth) infiltrates the façade of tourism and leisure. Majeed uses its specific visual language (in her words, “South Asian digital kitsch”) to chart the residues and impact of technocratic regimes on the formation of national identities, urban planning, and the problematic centrality of the West.
Majeed will give a public lecture performance at 1708 on Saturday, July 17 at 11 am in which she will weave her way through the digital interfaces she creates, like the work included in this exhibition, fotocopy.net. Through manipulating her cultural subjectivity and shifting visual and conceptual perspective in virtual and real time, Majeed’s performance will elucidate key tenets of her research as artistic process and her socio-political endeavours. In addition to the exhibition, NOTES ON TRANS-PAKISTAN ZINDABAD, a new essay by Karina Iskandarsjah about Majeed's project and practice, will be published in our online journal at ext.1708gallery.org.
Installation Documentation by David Hale, courtesy of 1708 Gallery
Majeed’s Contribution to OPEN OFFICE.2
Detail Shots by Christine Lockerby, courtesy of 1708 Gallery