Riaz Mehmood
They Make Desolation and Call it Peace - In Progress, 2020
As a research-based multi-disciplinary artist, my work has focused on issues of power, the construction of knowledge and the role of mass media in shaping both individual and collective identities. I have also increasingly become interested in the role of technology, specifically the ways in which surveillance and data-collection shapes our contemporary life. In order to explore these diverse issues, I use and integrate a number of mediums such as to video, photography and performance to communicate my ideas.
In my recent project “They Make Desolation and Call it Peace”, I examine the continuous war in Afghanistan and its devastating effects on the people in this region, in particular Pashtuns living on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. Besides the horrors of war and the coinciding spiral of greed, I also want to show the resilience of the young people in the region who have organized, and protested with the dream of a peaceful and dignified future. However, my approach is to tell this story using a variety of methods - sometimes absurd, and sometimes unbelievable stories that have made international headlines. From a looped video of lucky dogs that can hear and dodge drone strikes, to the use of a ‘chador’ (a ceremonial shroud of memory and respect placed on the graves of Sufis) to illustrate the names of American and Pakistani politicians, private military corporations and others, my work seeks to show the symbiotic and changing connections of the region.
In another vinyl text-based installation “Our Reality is Divided by an Imaginary Line,” I focus on slogans that have been used on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border to register futility of wars and artificial divisions. In addition to foreign wars brought on by various imperial and regional players in their pursuit of control, the population of the border region are also heavily monitored and their physical movement highly restricted through ongoing fortification of the border and network of military check-posts. This colonial border also cuts across clan and familial lines.
Ultimately, my works seeks to expand and add complexity to the region and provide a humanistic understanding of Pashtun narratives – ones that has historically been grounded in British colonial stereotypes.
Image Descritions & Additional Information
1) - 4) Scenes from my village and surrounding region. Image courtesy of the artist.
5) “His Rules Are Different Than Ours”, tombstone with inscription in Urdu and English, 2 x 3.5 feet. Image courtesy of the artist.
6) “His Rules Are Different Than Ours”, Chador detail, textile with dye-sublimation print, 5.5 x 7 feet.
7) “Two Missing Beats,” Video courtesy of the artist.
Riaz Mehmood is a multidisciplinary artist who uses video, photography and computer programming as his primary means of expression. His research explorations involve examining emerging technologies and their relationship to art, and his practice often visits themes of multiple and fluid identities, geographical, psychological and cultural displacement, magic realism, and the development of knowledge. He immigrated to Canada in 2000 as a professional engineer and decided to pursue a career in the arts. Riaz holds an MFA from the University of Windsor (2012) and completed the Integrated Media program at the Ontario College of Art and Design (2005). He has participated in several international and national artist residencies and workshops, and has earned numerous grants, scholarships, and awards over the years. Riaz has also been involved with a number of artist-run centers and served on the boards of SAVAC (Toronto) and articule (Montréal). His works have been shown nationally and internationally.