Naira Mushtaq: State of Play
Opening reception: Thursday 26 February, 6 – 8pm
Exhibition: Friday 27 February – Friday 20 March
Mushtaq’s work explores notions of nationhood and identity through the lens of her home country of Pakistan.
This exhibition presents a body of work examining the language of governance in Pakistan. By isolating imagery from historic and contemporary posters, television and film, Mushtaq reveals the common language of propaganda. Despite changes to government and policy, the theatre of politics, of “putting on a good show”, remains constant. Figures on stage, their mouths open in song or speech could be politicians or pop stars while the audience is both passive consumer and potential mob. Power and agency shifts again and again as we are pulled into and out of the arena; one moment close enough to see the glint of a man’s glasses, the next held behind a barrage of TV screens.
Mushtaq was born in 1990 in Lahore, Pakistan and lives and works in London, UK. She holds an MA in Painting from Central Saint Martins, London where she received the International Vice-Chancellor Scholarship.
