Patchwork Memories

Urdu pulp fiction, a legendary Lahori bookshop, and architecture in Pakistan and Bangladesh, come together in Shezad Dawood’s show to navigate South Asian identity, discovers Pooja Savansukha.

- Pooja Savansukha.

Shezad Dawood. House in a Garden II. Vintage textile collage. 92 cms x 75 cms. 2019. Images courtesy of the artist and the gallery.

London-based Shezad Dawood’s House in a Garden from the 11th of November to the 30th of December, 2021, at Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai, navigates the crisp geometries of modernist construction in Bangladesh and Pakistan, virtually jumping through decades in the Post-Partition, Cold War period. With references to architecture, kantha textiles, and graphic design, the exhibition – drawing from Dawood’s hybrid Indo-Pakistani background and upbringing across the US, UK, and Pakistan – meditates on cross-currents of South Asian histories.

Dawood had his last solo in India in 2010. In this show, he mounts paintings, collages and a Virtual Reality (VR) experience. This puts his works Encroachments (2018 – 19) and