Q
2020
Sanat Initiative Karachi

Amin created Q for a group exhibition curated by Champa at Sanat Initiative in Karachi. Champa is a fictitious character invented by Emaan Mahmud for her ongoing blog, which chronicles the random thoughts of a high society Karachi woman who imagines herself an expert on contemporary Pakistani art. Amin created an alter ego of his own for her show. An hour before the opening, Amin asked Sara Pagganwala to rub his face, chest, arms and legs with Holi colors of green and purple. Wearing only a loincloth of red felt, he lay inside a copper boat that he had created for River Dreams of Alexander in 2006. For this work, he had repurposed its interior with the same fabric as his lungi and stenciled a large black “Q” above his resting head. The night of the opening, “Champa” pulled the boat onto the floor of the gallery from behind a curtain. Fitted with a microphone, Amin called her name over and over again in an otherworldly voice as he fired two plastic toy guns that discharged soap bubbles. Following the curator’s lead, others began to drag the boat this way and that. Soon he was being spun around in dizzying circles. Having relinquished control of his physical trajectory to the whims of the group, Amin focused on maintaining his own equilibrium. This is a survival mechanism commonly adopted by those who appear strange, unorthodox, or queer, to the majority. Amin’s statement for the show was: ?