Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Salima Hashmi\u2019s home in Lahore\u2019s upscale Model Town neighbourhood is a large, wood-framed Raj-era bungalow filled to bursting with a cultural clutter of art, family photos and books lining countless shelves. But despite being where the artist, teacher and curator has lived for more than 55 years, the house is no museum piece. Hashmi and her family tend a cultural flame that casts a broader light across south Asia and the wider world. An airy veranda leads on to a hallway, where green fanlight windows project a serene light throughout a labyrinth of rooms. Unlike other houses in the neighbourhood, Hashmi\u2019s has retained its \u201ctypical British bungalow\u201d layout, with two main reception rooms and discreet daftars, or workspaces, on either side of the veranda. At 82, Hashmi continues to create the mixed media artworks that have brought her to prominence, which meld the personal with themes of social justice and the plight of women. She remains a force in the art scene in Pakistan\u2019s cultural capital and continues to bring south Asian art and artists to an international stage. And in her decades of teaching \u2014 at Lahore\u2019s National College of Arts before becoming dean at Beaconhouse National University\u2019s School of Visual Arts and Design \u2014 she has mentored some of the country\u2019s most renowned artists, including Shahzia Sikander, Imran Qureshi and Aisha Khalid. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the back of her house incorporates an art gallery, open to the public, in what used to be a garage. Works by Brooklyn-based Pakistani artist Ruby Chishti are currently on show.From an armchair by the fireplace in the living room, Hashmi greets me wearing an informal but chic trouser and kurta, scarf draped over one shoulder, bangles and canary-yellow loafers with coloured patterned socks reminiscent of a painting by Joan Mir\u00f3.\u00a0\u201cIn Pakistan, we introduced some of those who became the stars of the art world,\u201d Hashmi says, serving tea, salted nuts and dates. The house was built around 1929-30 by Hashmi\u2019s late husband\u2019s grandfather, a judge, she tells me. His family already had a house in Lahore\u2019s old city, and Model Town was just emerging as a suburb for the city\u2019s wealthy professionals. Today it is one of Lahore\u2019s most well-heeled precincts; Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is among those with a house here. Hashmi and her husband moved here in 1969, and the house quickly became \u201ca refuge, a lively meeting centre for artists, writers, political figures, and a shelter for activists\u201d, Hashmi says, including the leader of the leftist Mazdoor Kisan party in the 1970s and women whose families had disowned them because of their relationships with people from different sects.Hashmi comes from a family of cultural and political agitators: leftwing Pakistani intellectuals whose views have at various times landed them in hot water. Her father, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, was a renowned Urdu poet; her late husband Shoaib Hashmi, who died in 2023, was a prominent artist, director and TV writer who created the satirical TV programme\u00a0Such Gup (the Urdu translates roughly as \u201cTruth and Gossip\u201d).She herself has just co-curated an exhibition at London\u2019s School of Oriental and African Studies \u2014 (Un)Layering the Future Past of South Asia: Young Artists\u2019 Voices \u2014 featuring the work of exiled Afghan artist Sher Ali. One of the multiple hats Hashmi wears is director of the Unesco Madanjeet Singh Institute of South Asian Arts, which runs a scholarship programme for students from across south Asia.\u00a0The art gallery in her own home is part of a series of domestic reimaginings the couple established when they became its custodians. \u201cWe added new hideaways, made cupboards, and discovered little hidey-holes and made them into nooks to contemplate the world in,\u201d Hashmi says, guiding me through the main hallway, where paintings, drawings and photos, having filled all the wall space, spill over on to tables.We added hideaways, made cupboards, and discovered little hidey-holes and nooks to contemplate the world inShe points out a portrait of her father by the Indian photographer Raghu Rai. He had moved the family from Delhi to Lahore in February 1947, on the eve of Partition, and set up the Pakistan Times; he spent five years in jail in the early 1950s for his revolutionary views, she tells me. \u201cAnd that\u2019s my wedding photograph,\u201d Hashmi says, pointing to a black and white photo. The couple met on the set of an Urdu-language student production of She Stoops to Conquer in the early 1960s. They married in 1965.The couple settled into Lahore\u2019s rich cultural scene, but at different times each faced repercussions for their political activism. In 1981 Shoaib spent three months in jail \u2014 along with journalists, politicians and lawyers seen as a \u201cthreat to public safety\u201d during dictator Zia-ul-Haq\u2019s martial law.\u00a0In 2007 Hashmi was one of several prominent Pakistani women detained under house arrest for about two weeks when Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the country\u2019s constitution. \u00a0Off the main living room is a suite of rooms which have been converted to accommodate her son Yasser Hashmi (named after Yasser Arafat, she tells me) and his family. As we talk, a small boy emerges \u2014 Hashmi\u2019s grandson, who, she proudly says, just won a junior chess championship in Karachi.\u00a0On the opposite side of the hall, a similar suite is devoted to her daughter Mira (her name is a derivative of mir, the Russian word for \u201cpeace\u201d, and a nod to the 16th-century Indian poet Mirabai). Mira is currently based in London while her children attend university in the UK but a Sri Lankan artist, Sakunthala, a former student of Hashmi\u2019s, is temporarily living in the rooms. \u201cI refuse to take any rent,\u201d Hashmi says, \u201cso she occasionally delights us with a Sri Lankan meal.\u201dHashmi has now shepherded me into a back living room of the house, with turquoise walls \u2014 there are flashes of vivid colour throughout the home \u2014 and lined with yet more bookcases and artworks. \u201cThis is my sort of private sitting room \u2014 you know, if I have a student come by, or an old friend; a more quiet and intimate space.\u201d Behind, there is a kitchen, which Hashmi\u2019s extended family sometimes use. \u201cWe only have meals together on Sundays because people have very different timings,\u201d she laughs. They also meet for a big \u201ctraditional breakfast\u201d to celebrate the two Eid holidays.\u00a0Behind the house is a courtyard leading to Hashmi\u2019s studio. On a worktable filled with tubes of paints is a mixed-media work: a photograph of her family, with paint applied; part of a series \u201con the fungibility of the family\u201d, she says. Hashmi has long embraced mixed-media formats; a means to question how art was traditionally taught and made in south Asia. \u201cI had been dissatisfied with oil and canvas for a long time,\u201d she says. \u201cI found it ponderous \u2014 and also the behaviour of oil and canvas in the tropics is difficult because it expands in the summer.\u201dThe artist has also long questioned Pakistan\u2019s patriarchal norms, and was involved in the Women\u2019s Action Forum, the only feminist organisation that was allowed to work publicly under Zia-ul-Haq. In 1983 the Hashmi family bungalow\u2019s front living room hosted a group who signed a women\u2019s artists manifesto, a copy of which she displays in the studio \u2014 she says, \u201cto discourage me from being frivolous\u201d.\u00a0This is a house where some of the objects not only tell stories, but seem to speak back.\u00a0\u201cThis home has seen much over its 100 years,\u201d she says. \u201cWe took it over in 1969 and transformed it \u2014 or perhaps it has changed us.\u201d\u00a0\u201c(Un)Layering the Future Past of South Asia: Young Artists\u2019 Voices\u201d, co-curated by Salima Hashmi; until June 21; Soas.ac.ukFind out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow @ft_houseandhome on Instagram<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Salima Hashmi\u2019s home in Lahore\u2019s upscale Model Town neighbourhood is a large, wood-framed Raj-era bungalow filled to bursting with a cultural clutter of art, family photos and books lining countless shelves. But despite being where the artist, teacher and curator has lived for more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":288711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-288710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":288712,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288710\/revisions\/288712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}