AAN Gandham Art Space`s current photogmphy-based exhibition weaves digital stories which refer to aæhiving visual memory. `Depictuæ`, cumted by Alia Bilgmmi, shows the work of Shah Numair Abbasi, Ali Sultan, Aisha Abid Hussain, Malika Abbas, Veem Rustomji, Jovita Alvares, Nurjahan Akhlag and Iqra Tanveer. The overall narrative comes fmm a cmssover of painting, film and photographic backgmunds that `seeks to address the transient natuæ of time-based media.

Staikly minimal in its layout, it complements the understated aæhitectural ambieance of the gallery space.

Abbasi`s pmvocative imagery on male gay cultuæ draws on a combination of the wit and immediacy of a cell phone chat.

A series of informal drawings, pigment maiker, pencil and watercolour are titled `All characters appearing in this work aæ fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons should be apparent to them and those who know them.` The annotation accompanying the visuals almost as basic as a student`s mood board-reconis real or imaginary online conversations between men. The words used in mobile applications are used here as symbols for communication within a close circle. They are, therefore, understood by the participants. The artist is merely engaging the viewer from an experiential point of view. This depicts the artist`s vulnerable position in its deviance from social conformity.

Akhlag is a filmmaker whose work in this show looks at the more formal concerns of flatness and movement.

Her aesthetics are influenced by Islamic architectural divisions within which she locates a disorder and rupture. Tanveer explores a dreamlike pictorial space.

Alvares` two diptychs are an assemblage of shots of an abandoned site filled with rubble. She marks the constructed/dilapidated uiban landscape in a vague reconstruction, addressing the notion of continuity and discontinuity.

One may ask what her generation of artists is witnessing in the land as subject, and if this relationship seeks to idealise the unkempt land for the `market`, or what Sontag referred to as `aesthetic consumption ` The curator refers to locating connection to histories, and this may be an important intersection where artists start to document the land around themin an experiential sense.

Sultan`s photographs of bushes, recorded in black and white, convey a sense of the paintedy. The imagery is charged with intense movement, and becomes all the more compelling dueto the smallness of its size. In contrast, Abbas`la1geinkjet prints, also inblackand white, have a moæ immediate connection with the viewer. An eldedy woman`s expæssion, as she is photographed while she is either cleaning her mouth or putting her dentuæs in a private moment æflects her vulnerability. She seems tobeunawaæ of the photographer`s intrusion. Sontag also æferæd to photography as a weapon because of its voyeuristic natuæ.

Hussain`s moving image is a documentation of the interior spaces of Salima and Shoaib Hashmi`s house. The objects and spaces within it become a portrait of Salima Hashmi, as reconied by Hussain.Rustomji`s moving clip of food being cooked engages with the societal conditioning of women in stereotypical mles. Critiques such as this place the artist at the centre of the discussion, as she negotiates with expectations, without masking or glorifying the situation. Her mle is of a commentator advising girls to cook a good meal if they want the husband to be faithful.

The seemingly simple visuals in the show pmvide a mirmr to the different temperaments of Pakistani society.

`Depicture` is being exhibited at the A AN Gandhara Art Space in Karachi from February 21 to March 21, 2019