Only the Moon to Play With (Performance)

 What was initially meant to be a trilogy became nine grains of salt, divisible by three.  Quite unpretentiously they were about being in love, being British and being Muslim.

I offer an invitation to witness and engage in rituals and ceremonies: those of death, of marriage and of belief.  More often than not one confuses ritual with religion and habit with belief.

My relationship to art lies somewhere between homily and the angst of unrequited love.  I cannot help but both laugh and cry in the face of my own practice.

Nine lives to live, nine grains to give…

anokha laadla (unique brat)

nine grains of salt on offer…

A piece in three parts by qasim riza shaheen

anokha laadla

presents

Only The Moon To Play With: Being British

Through installation, film and performance Being British provides an insight into uniquely tailored identities, from a pre-partition Pakistani who got off the boat in Liverpool three generations ago, to a bride-like figure awaiting its fate.

The tensions of diaspora and the frustrations of a British passport are the precepts for questioning: the Israeli apartheid system by offering apples from Jerusalem; the politics of Indian cuisine and their “menus, please”; and the journey back to a home which is never quite as one knew it.   

Only The Moon To Play With: Being Muslim
 
Being Muslim is a beard under surveillance.  Remembrance of god through 99 Panels of a muslin frock takes the form of a garment installation transposing English language into an exotic textual gaze.
 
Five kurtas.  Five prayers.  Five deaths.  Conversing with Angels is a live experience reconciling an internal jihad and the silent mourning in the name of holy war.
 

Only The Moon To Play With: Being in Love.

"I will dance to win my beloved even if it means becoming a whore"  being in love comprises...  

Being in Love comprises three elements: Rock Hudson, coloured contact lenses and looking for one’s own Assassin.  Love for the father, the lover that’s gone and love

for the evolving self are three grains in a bag of salt.  Three grains on offer.

With porcelain fragility, seven letters written to a misplaced hero are

heard.  Insignificant whispers turn to chaotic protest in a space filled with echoes

and screams.

Dear Rock,

Someone tried to kill me once…

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