The lost art of letter writing — celebrated by fourteen artists

KARACHI: Featuring works by Dua Abbas, Farazeh Syed, Fatima Saeed, Hurmat ul Ain, Inaam Zafar, Julius John, Lali Khalid, Mohsin Shafi, Nida Bangash, Nurjahan Akhlaq, Rabbya Naseer, Rehana Mangi, Sehr Jalil and Zohreen Murtaza, the group show by Sanat Initiative is an ode to a delightful custom that was around long before phone calls, emails, or instant messages.

Most fascinating of all is how each artist exhibiting their work through a style, vocabulary and medium of their own has highlighted the values and etiquettes associated with letter writing by touching upon a particular notion of love.

The fourteen artist display, through a diverse use of media and material from, paper, flowers, paint, video, installations, explores how this special kind of art that can communicate an extraordinary range of sentiments- something entirely lost to us in this age of thumb typing frenzy and sterile screens.

From paper, ink, presentation and selection of words, a letter, written by hand and sent through the post, is an irrefutably timeless form of art worth bringing back says the artist Mohsin Shafi who is also the curator of the group show. Being the next best thing to showing up personally at someone’s door, the writing and reception of letter to a loved one will always offer an experience that modern technology cannot touch, explains the curator.  Paying homage to love and to writing,

The exhibition, paying homage to love and to writing through the revival of a lost art and craft, is also an attempt to address communication and its pitfalls in the modern era according to Shafi.  The body of work titled ‘Love Letters’ by creating an intimate experience of handwritten letters in a gallery, hopes to comment on the irony of the modern life and its many impersonal forms of communication which despite its instant availability is failing to connect and convey real feelings and emotions, concludes the curator talking about the sarcastic undertones of the group show.

Opening on Valentine’s Day the group show called ‘Love Letters’ by Sanat Gallery is to continue till February 23.