globalization – Art Spiel

Sanié Bokhari and Umber Majeed Discuss the Forbidden

Sanié Bokhari. It’s 11.49 pm here, 2022. 36 x 48 in. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and The Immigrant Artist Biennial.

As part of The Immigrant Artists Biennial: Contact Zone, Sanié Bokhari, and Umber Majeed present their work in the Enmeshed: Dreams of Water group exhibition. As artists of Pakistani descent currently residing in the US, both Bokhari and Majeed tap into the changing landscape of globalization and the unstable experience of international migrants’ identity formation. Evoking water as a symbol of fluidity and change, Bokhari’s painting and Majeed’s video deploy a metaphoric framing that is beautiful and complex. In this conversation with Jenny Wang, they critically reflect on the geopolitics of belonging and identity.

“Containment”, partial Installation view at Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, (right wall: Erin Diebboll, center front: Linda Ganjian, left: david Packer), photo by Etienne Frossard

The group of international artists throughout the two exhibitions at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey – “Containment” and “Oh what a world! What a world!” are altogether reflecting on social, political, and cultural changes in recent history. “Oh what a world! What a world!”, located in the Main Gallery, addresses a wide array of issues related to immigration, gender equality, civil rights, policing, protest, and the state of our Democracy. “Containment”, at the Eisenberg and Strolling Gallery, addresses specifically hot trade issues – how the use of shipping containers affects our ability to trade and ship goods globally, coming to the forefront with Trump’s attempts to remove the country from existing trade deals. Both shows were curated by Mary Birmingham. The following preview on the two shows is largely based on text provided by the NJ Visual Arts Center.

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