Effigy of Man

My grandfather's photographs are evidence of societal gaze shaped by migration histories and patriarchal ideals. Through self-portraiture and collage, I engage with his images confronting dominant representations of masculinity within a family structure.

Growing up in a joint family, my grandfather was a revered man and often to be feared. A central figure and a constant reference to the lost past. Throughout his life, he was understood as a strict, closed, short-tempered, authoritative, and orthodox man. After being forced to emigrate from Pakistan to India during the Partition of 1947 at a young age, he distanced himself and led a secluded life. While as the patriarch of the family, he rebuilt relationships in a society with strict gender roles.

Living alone away from my family today and being obsessed with the Partition history, I have often found myself delving on similar paths. Some equated us alongside typical hyper-masculine traits;  research elicited this behaviour resulting from intergenerational trauma; family members pushed their agenda of marriage; and a quick search over the internet referred to the more generic traits of modern isolation. My sense is that if I could undo his image, I must see him. His 'essence' eludes his photographs, and his images are what separates us. By this way of confronting him because, as we know, family photographs are records of performances, and knowing that we perform, and he performed, with his gaze reinforcing his own construct, I must dismantle his images as a means to converse. More than a decade after his passing, in this series, An Effigy of Man, I engage with the images of the patriarch vis-a-vis my late grandfather in order to examine the intersectional nature of the role of men in my family, confronting norms, ideals and expectations that singularly define them, and perhaps think of myself from alternative ways of being. 

Using self-portraiture and collage, my work tries to displace the image of the father figure, questioning the myth of the strong ideal man. Made in a studio set-up referring to a secluded interior space, I perform with the parts of my grandfather's male body. Understanding these men of my family from the position of displaced bodies themselves due to their migration histories, this ongoing series shifts away from an essentialist understanding of 'man' to explore the social 'construction' of masculinity while situating it within the feminist framework.