LAHORE: The Alhamra Art Centre, Mall Road, was festooned with big panaflexes bearing images and poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz as the three-day 8th International Faiz Festival started on Friday.

The annual festival is organised by the Faiz Foundation Trust in collaboration with the Lahore Arts Council (L AC).

There are sitting arrangements on the lawns of Alhamra, the audio recordings, mostly of Nayyara Noor and Abida Parveen, are adding to the attraction for the visitors.

On Friday, the people from different walks of life and age groups, especially the youth, could be witnessed attending the festival.

The festival opened with theinaugural ceremony held outside Alhamra Art Gallery along with the inauguration of an exhibition of artworks titled, Dil Na Umeed Tou Nahi, featuring artworks by 38 women artists.

The artists have used diverse media like oil, acrylic, natural pigments, watercolour, sculpture, ceramic, textile, fabric, printmaking, digital, video or installation art, with diverse subject matters that address the concerns of the artists going beyond gender and location.

The women artists featuring in the show come from across Pakistan as well as the diaspora.

This exhibition is intended to present an overview of the last five decades of this struggle.

Women from different times, ages and locations from all over Pakistan and around the world have come together to sharetheir stories. The exhibition is being curated by Saulat Ajmal and Sheraz Faisal (Rohtas 2 Gallery) and assisted by Asadullah Khan.

At the inaugural ceremony of the Faiz Foundation Trust chairperson Salima Hashmi said the title of this exhibition had been espoused from a line of a ghazal of Faiz Ahmed Faiz `Dil Na Umeed Tou Nahi` that talks about hope, struggle, resilience. This exhibition is homage to the struggle of living women artists who depict hope and resilience in their works.

Arvinder Chamak, a poet from India who spoke in Punjabi, held Faiz in high esteem. He said he was from Amritsar, a city where Faiz taught. Chamak said he would eagerly wait for the Faiz Festival every year. Besides Faiz`s Urdu poetry, his Punjabi poetrywas also full of messages for humanity.

Dr Swarnamalya from Chennai India also spoke on the occasion.

Lahore Arts Council Executive Director Tariq Mehmood Chaudhry welcomed the guests and the organisers of Faiz festival.

Ajoka Theatre staged its famous play, Bullah, on the inaugural day of the festival. There was also a qawwali performance by Sabri Brothers who came all the way from England to perform in the festival. It`s their third year performing qawwali at the Faiz Festival.

The LAC had made a special effort to maintain cleanliness at the festival venue. The turnout on the opening day of the festival was encouraging as people from all age groups attended the inaugural ceremony.