At the heart of this years Art Oasis at Wafi is Interior Designer/installation artist, Zain Mustafa’s award winning, site specific, interactive piece: Carousel.

Carousel, made from his signature set of 18 white, muslin, unisex kurtas from Pakistan circles the eye of Horus located at the centre of the show it is art that connects to the viewer, gives back to the community by allowing you to take it with you. Viewers to the show are encouraged to participate in this trading experience.

To take a kurta with you, to walk away with a piece of the art, you are requested to replace your selected kurta with an item of clothing from your own wardrobe. As long as its not brand new or black any color will do. T-shirts, blouses, tank tops, gym gear, oxfords, shirts, Kunduras etc anything that you have worn for a while. The idea is to give while you take. All the kurtas have a personality to them because of the story that each one carries. Write your story too, on cards provided at the show and leave your garment as a piece of art to hang there. (There is Jamjar staff on site to help you coordinate when you can pick up your item after selecting it).

Zain Mustafa will paint your traded-in garment with the same word in calligraphy as the one you take with you. When another viewer comes to trade, taking your item with them, they will follow the same sequence of events.

The show will continue as does the cycle of life. As one story ends, another will begin. You will be a part of the performance. A part of the art. You too will become an artist. A part of the art of giving back to a community of people you may never know, but the connection will live on through these inscribed garments of clothing whose lives will change as they move from one owner to another.

Come, join us in being a part of the Carousel of life.

The white muslin kurta, a tunic worn by both men and women, of all ages, classes, creeds and religious beliefs, inherent to the clothing history of the sub continent even through its pre occupation centuries, is a part of the regions story.

It is a simple, pure, usually hand woven organic cotton ‘’mulmul’’ garment that has transcended all of fashion’s trends. In its unisex spirit it also transcends gender roles and power play between patriarchal and matriarchal societies. It is truly democratic. Born from dust like us and unto dust will go.

This installation detaches the ego of the inaccessible, pedestalled art and turns these simple Duchampian skins into a performance piece that is completed only with the mark of the public hand on it. Its desire is to be regenerated, transformed from one energy to another. To end one life and start another. To go from the skin of one onto the skin of another. Worn with equal pride. Equal dignity regardless of social heirarchy, skin color, income bracket or faith.

It is a trade of one common object of clothing with another. Taking one, giving another. Taking from one, giving to another. And then again. Spreading the community connection without knowing where the garment has come from and not knowing where it will go. The magic of time, continuity and the lyricism of anonymity.

Each germ 18 kurtas will be marked with the artists Pakistani spiritual and philosophical signature from Iqbal’s 1937 poem that have left a deep impression on the artist’s mind and his work:

‘’Hazaroon saal nargis apni bey noori pay rothi hay, Bari mushkil say hotha hay chaman mein deedawar paida”

‘’For thousands of years Narcissus weeps at her ugliness. It is with great difficulty that someone is born in the garden (of Eden) with eyes.’’

Each kurta has one of these words written on it by the artist. Each traded garment will then have the same word written on it as was on the kurta that it replaces, for its further travel into Nature’s organic recycled continuum