We Sin-phool Women
2022
Flowers, wire, performance, painting, audio, video
In collaboration with the artist, Zahra Mansoor, We Sin-phool Women explores the intricacies and hardships of femininity in South Asian public space. ‘We Sin-phool Women’ is a play on the English title of Kishwar Naheed’s feminist poem, Ham Guneghar Aurtein, (We Sinful Women) and the Urdu word for flower, ‘phool.’
We Sin-phool Women is a philosophical dance between jasmine and South Asian women, exploring the juxtaposition of beauty and violence, and the vulnerability of being feminine in public. The centerpiece of the exploration is a series of sculptures created from chicken-wire mesh and motia (Arabian jasmine) flowers. The sculptures were placed in Karachi’s public spaces to create a performance through public interaction. These performances were documented on color video.
The final presentation of this project took place at Chawkandi Gallery (Karachi, Pakistan) in the summer of 2022. The show incorporated the sculptures, the video documentation of each performance, oil paintings by Zahra Mansoor, and audio recordings which were gathered from South Asian women over the course of the project.
