KARACHI:
In 2020, like the rest of the world, Hassan finds herself trapped within the four walls of her family home. We had household duties and chores and, of course, making tea for a family of eight twice a day.
During the lockdown, she remembers feeling weighed down and overwhelmed by household duties, especially making tea, while in the tie the lockdown provided she would have preferred to focus on creating a related concept for her university thesis.
"I felt like I was trapped in a tea bag," she said.
Wondering how many other women felt the same way, she started talking to women from different industries and backgrounds of Karachi. To her surprise or lack of it, countless women were also subjected to abuse, ridicule and vitriol and felt trapped in a teacup.
During her formative years, Hassan was a naturally skilled artist, but never considered art as a viable career. It was only after completing her O-levels that she took a leap of faith to continue her journey in the art world. In 2017, she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Karachi, where she received an academic achievement award. It was then that she began working with the elements of tea, showcasing the complexity of female fragility, suffocation and burden.
Her work has been exhibited in various group exhibitions and art galleries. She was the manager of the MANACHI project between Manchester Museum and Karachi University in collaboration with the State Bank of Pakistan and the British Council. She is also the co-curator of a creative book collection called 'Manachi'. He is currently working on a master's degree in fine arts at a renowned foreign university.
The irony, as Hassan puts it, is that while tea is a motif that unites families, friends and even strangers, it is also a way to create hatred and pass judgment. This revelation became the driving force behind her thesis and art, and she began to explore themes in her artwork.
Being a woman means performing
Women are expected to perform well in every aspect of life while maintaining their charm, only to be mocked, compared and prepared to let their inner potential go to waste. And with all of this, they are suffocating under the weight of expectations of household chores as simple as making tea.
Hassan's work reflects her satirical and rebellious attitude towards the meaningless or degrading traditions and norms that follow in our society. With her art, she pays tribute to the bravery, resilience and powerlessness of women.
“My work impressions emphasize the social sense of suffocation and desperation in the act of obedience, which includes preparing and setting the table and hosting the family every day, as well as entertaining frequent guests. Sure, we've all been there," he emphasizes.
Using pressed organic flowers and tea bags, she depicts the emotional and physical stress women go through on a daily basis, when brain drain threatens and inner peace is 'squeezed out' like tea in a tea bag. Dried flowers express feminine love and aura captured in a tiny tea bag with no way out.
He draws parallels between women and the octopus, a creature that has three hearts, nine brains and eight arms, but both are incredibly smart, creative and fluid. Hassan thinks that life would be easier for women if they were like octopuses with more arms and legs to perform the multitude of tasks assigned to women.
"I feel like a woman does a lot with only two hands."
Redefining femininity beyond perfection
Through her captivating art, she questions societal expectations of female perfection in all spheres of life, advocates accepting their flaws and finding beauty in them. It promotes Rumi's idea that in everything God has created there is a crack, a gap is where light enters.
It invites society to enjoy its cup of tea without associating it with a person's moral character. She rejects the idea that women have to follow a checklist and emphasizes that women are made for far more complex and varied roles than making tea.
Her artistic expressions are also in line with Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity, which claims that male and female roles are not biologically fixed, but rather socially constructed.
A national obsession
Hassan's choice of tea as a tool is deeply connected to Pakistan's obsession with this popular beverage. Chai (tea) is very ingrained in our culture and it's easy to say it's a huge part of who we are.
It is a household essential that exists in variety and abundance regardless of inflation or affordability issues. Pakistanis enjoy a staggering array of tea selections; doodh patti, karrak chai, Kashmiri chai, masala chai, tandoori chai, herbal tea and even a good old bag of danidar [granular].
Some people drink tea either in the morning or in the evening, but most prefer it twice a day, while there are many who do not need an excuse to have tea, or an excuse for them to have tea several times a day. In this way, tea not only shapes plans, but also concentrates a rounded lifestyle and creates an unbreakable cultural bond.
It brings families together on special occasions like eid, weddings or social gatherings like watching cricket matches together, movie tons etc. It also unites them almost every day to sit and relax with family or friends over a cup of tea. Guests never leave without a cup of tea, and even the slightest hint of rain triggers a cultural need for tea. It's an age-old quick fix for headaches, a cure for boredom, and a buffer/filler for awkward conversations.
This tea drinking culture gave rise to dhabas [roadside restaurants] where you sit down and have tea after a long day at work. At the same time, rishis [marriage proposals] are being finalized over a cup of chai, and from college friends in the dining room to aunties in their posh salon, everyone finds solace in tea parties where they can relax and chat.
This tea obsession took human form in 2016 when a blue-eyed chai-wallah was photographed in Islamabad's Sunday bazaar and became an overnight sensation. After all, he owned the two things we love the most; good looking and can make tea.
In 2022, there was a meltdown in Pakistan [also online] when Ahsan Iqbal, the federal minister for planning and development, told the nation to reduce tea consumption by one or two cups a day to save foreign exchange reserves, as tea imports increase financial a burden on the government.
Tea is a socially accepted addiction in the sense that it's weirder when you're not addicted to it. Still, this tradition, like many others, does not come without baggage.
The problem isn't so much the tea itself as the burdens and expectations surrounding making the perfect cup of tea, which, as Hassan points out, often falls disproportionately on women who are held under scrutiny, judged by quality and quality. the perfection of a cup of tea. Chai bohat achhi banaati hai hamari beti [our daughter makes very good tea], is an opening line for describing the skills and achievements of daughters to prospective in-laws at the time of their marriage proposal.
The search for acceptance
Through her art, Hassan challenges traditional gender roles and expectations and calls for women to be seen beyond perfection. He deliberately refuses the burden of their being, narrowed down to a cup of tea. Her work is an important reminder of the need to constantly push for social progress in terms of not only equal rights but also equal expectations for all genders.
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