MEMORY ORBITS
Collaborative Project by Iqra Tanveer & Ehsan Ul Haq
Commissioned by Lahore Biennale Third Edition – ‘Of Mountains and Seas’, October 5th – November 8th 2024. Supported by Mondriaan fonds, Netherlands.
In the project Memory Orbits, Ehsan Ul Haq and Iqra Tanveer collectively resonate to a sense of urgency, a moment in time that speculates a possible paradigm shift. Memory Orbits in a way evokes a moment of shifting states, a vigil of sorts; indicating a transition, a position between ruin and un-ruin. An installation that moves between objects, ceramic sculptures and light projections; forms a sort of cave ecology, providing anecdotes of survival, remembrance and contemplation. The project works as an allegory of time, shifting states that are accompanied by feelings of nostalgia and anticipation of the unfolding.
Clay forms commemorating beings that found extinction and a panopticon that failed to host wild life, now embodies a new form of wilderness, standing, waiting...
Video Projection, video loop, clay and steel.
A cloth suspended, dyed in mud remembering a past, mourning, stained, silently projecting a moment of loss. Dried flowers sit on this surface remembering. In the corner of this suspension stands a raker, witnessing...
Slide projection (30 slides), Dry pomegranate, Mud dyed Muslin, dry leaves, flowers, ceramic and bamboo.
An eclipse, emerging and receding, its movement is unknown and intentions uncertain. Appearing as a celestial anomaly when the sun and moon decide to be in union. A growing darkness followed by a light fully embraced, bathed and embodied, as if only this unity could manifest a complete cycle, marking an orbit of remembrance; repeating, mirroring...
Overhead projector, Dried rose, clay, stone slab and kinetic mechanism.
A station of fiber houses the remains of a certain conspicuous time, salt is seen remembering the sea that is lost. The ark embodying memory of the sea, is eclipsed and mirrored, betrayed like the ‘judas penning’. A clay fish lays thirsty alongside a tablet like a memoir of a nostalgic past. On the head of the ark stands a guardian; The Anchor, who kept the ark clean from sea debris and brought it to safe landing now stands as the witness ...
Video projection, video loop, Jute cloth, Mirror, vintage projection screen, sea salt, ceramic, jute rope, pickaxe, dried judas penning leaves, Photo transfer on lithography stones.
The end of this anti clockwise motion is with the Kandelaar (the candle holder), counting the 40 days of sun, forming a silent vigil, mourning...
The cycle repeats...
Photo transfer on wall, Wax candles, ceramic, steel, wood and fire.