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Osman Yousefzada, the Pakistani interdisciplinary artist, recently debuted 3 installation works titled ‘What is Seen, What is Not’ at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London.
Yousefzada’s work is a commission by the British Council in partnership with the Pakistan High Commission and the V&A. The collaboration has been timed to mark 75 years of independence and to Partition, but also to celebrate Pakistan’s connection with the United Kingdom and all the Pakistanis that call the UK home.
These ‘interventions’ across the museum are free to visit, and have been commissioned as part of the British Council’s festival season ‘Pakistan/UK: New Perspectives,’ according to a press release issued by the British Council.
The debut of the works was marked by an opening reception with speeches from the director of the V&A, Pakistan High Commission and British Council, followed by a commissioned choreographed performance by Dickson Mbi in the John Madejski garden.
The performance featured 3 dancers (2 dressed in a vibrant red and 1 in jet black) set to a moving instrumental piece. It was incredible to see the huge crowd that had descended on the garden who were enjoying the performance and filming the piece. The performance was centred around themes of shrines and Sufiism. The Sufi ideals of change and transcendence play a central component to Yousefzada’s works as it represents the mass migration that took place in 1947.
