'Killing Fields' issue: Karachi Biennale and police chief on same page.

Byline: Peerzada Salman

KARACHI -- After the plainclothes men forced the organisers on Sunday to shut down an artwork by Adeela Suleman titled Killing Fields of Karachi at Frere Hall that was part of the ongoing Karachi Biennale, social activists were expecting that the installation would be restored. But in an interesting turn of events on Monday, the issue reached a bit of an anticlimax after Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon gave a statement, as did the biennale's organisers.

The chief said: 'This effort on the part of the organiser seems to be motivated to question efforts of LEAs in restoring peace in Karachi. I don't defend Rao Anwar for his any act which is not legal but efforts to demean him are not restricted to his person but something which sounds beyond him. I think we be very careful in defending any effort which is being sponsored with the intention to show our LEAs as villain.'

The statement that the KB19 team released seemed to have settled the issue. It read: 'The Karachi Biennale is a platform for artists both emerging and established. We are against censorship of art and believe that expression is very subjective to the viewers interpretation of the artwork. With regards to the exhibit in question, we feel that despite the artist's perspective, it is not compatible with the ethos of KB19 whose theme is 'Ecology and the Environment', and feel that politicising the platform will go against our efforts to bring art into the public and drawing artists from the fringe to the mainstream cultural discourse.

'Any public event has to work within certain agreed with boundaries'

'The city government has been part of the entire process and has placed trust in our platform by facilitating the use of public spaces to install artworks and use the city as a canvas. We have painted with freedom on this canvas, and while art is self-expression, the theme this year did not warrant political statement on an unrelated issue, as all artists have agreed to focus on 'Ecology and the Environment' within the framework of cultural sensitivities.

'We hope the artists community will understand that our platform, as has been illustrated through our projects, is purely to promote art to build a large public audience and any public event has to work within certain agreed with boundaries. To ensure a sustainable future of Karachi Biennale it is imperative that we focus on its mandate to connect art, the city and its people.'

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