LIKE THAT?

This work addresses the male gaze and women’s presence in public space within Pakistan’s patriarchal society. Approached on the street, some women posed confidently for the camera while others were more cautious—yet they all reveled in emulating Lollywood star Saima. Their brief gestures were projected onto a life-size billboard cutout of Saima, mounted on a rooftop.

Art critic Quddus Mirza noted the piece’s “brilliant usage of space,” where “images of Saima and of other females overlapped in such a way that it was hard to distinguish one from the other.” He concluded that “the boundary between fantasy and actuality was inseparable,” as the women’s recorded actions “were converted into a virtual substance,” leaving Saima’s physical billboard presence as “the only reality” (Quddus Mirza, News on Sunday, 23 November 2003).