Mandarjazail Collective

Founded in 2015

The Mandarjazail Collective are Abdul Fateh Saif (b. 1990, Lahore), Fahad Naveed (b. 1990, Karachi), Shahzaib Arif Shaikh, (b. 1990, Hyderabad) and Veera Rustomji (b. 1992, Karachi). They are a group of visual artists hailing from a variety of creative disciplines, including: architecture; graphic design; textile design; photography; filmmaking; and fine art. Having been founded by a group of five like-minded creative individuals in 2015, the Collective now comprises twenty-three members, and continues to evolve with the addition of each new member. The Mandarjazail Collective represents a platform for symbiotic artistic relationships and dialogue, from which they provide one another with support, guidance and inspiration. They held their first show, ‘Excerpts’ at Koel Gallery, Karachi, in 2016, and are currently exploring various national and international opportunities.

 The Mandarjazail Collective’s work for the Karachi Biennale 2017, comprising of four large scale photographic portraits of the four members – Abdul Fateh Saif; Fahad Naveed; Shahzaib Arif Shaikh; and Veera Rustomji – is an artistic investigation into the powerful role that heavily-circulated images play in the formation of our essentialised perception of beauty and identity. The basis of the work’s subject matter is the ubiquitous fame of Steve McCurry’s image of the ‘Afghan Girl’, Sharbat Gula, which was published on the cover of National Geographic in its June 1985 edition. After the publication and mass-circulation of her piercing gaze, an image that is recognised throughout the world, Gula unwittingly became the symbol of the Afghan refugee crisis. The Mandarjazail Collective have placed themselves within this paradigmatic exemplar of the power of the media to utilise photographs to characterise and create a trajectory for an anonymous individual, questioning the ethical implications of witnessing sweeping narratives through the media’s prying lens. The scale of the works becomes a visual metaphor for the intense circulation of the media’s photographic currency, whilst the element of self-portraiture raises the almost existential concern with the fact that in global culture, one thirteen-year-old girl can be seen as representative for a whole population – for Sharbat Gula shall be known in posterity as the ‘Afghan Girl’.