Jennifer Hall Lee, center, Hina Abidi left, Dr. Sofia Hussain and Dr. Sonia Irum and Dr. Munazza Yaqoob in Pakistan.
A new visual exhibit, Women Without Borders: A Visual Study of Women’s Lives in Pakistan, will be hosted on November 2 and 3 by the National Pakistan Council of the Arts in Islamabad.
By News Desk
The project is by Altadena, California filmmaker and writer Jennifer Hall Lee, with the full support of Dr. Munazza Yaqoob, Dr. Sonia Irum, and Dr. Sofia Hussain, who are all professors of English at the International Islamic University, Islamabad. With them is Los Angeles-based Ms. Hina Abidi, who is also president of the Pakistan Arts Council in Pasadena. The Pakistan National Council of the Arts is located in Islamabad, Pakistan.
The exhibit is composed of photographs and video clips from interviews of women conducted in various parts of Pakistan, including Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, in the province of Punjab, and in rural areas in Chitral Jennifer Hall Lee said, “Interviewing in cities and villages about culture, patriarchy, and feminism has been an enlightening experience into the complexity of Pakistani women’s lives.”
Their path throughout the country included events in universities where Lee’s film “Feminist: Stories from Women’s Liberation” was screened, and Lee participated in question-and-answer sessions with students. Dr. Munazza Yaqoob said, “Now is the time to network women globally for empowerment in three interwoven spheres: social, educational, and economic.”
This is part one of a joint project between Lee and the Critical Thinking Forum of the IIUI. There will be a United States exhibit in Pasadena in 2024.
The relationships between the women from IIUI and Lee began in 2012 when Lee was editing her film, and by 2013 she was invited to the IIUI by Dr. Yaqoob to screen it. In 2016, Lee was chosen by Yaqoob as the coordinator of a trip to the Los Angeles area by IIUI students and Yaqoob for a State Department-funded project called Consciousness Raising of Pakistani Women. They stayed in Old Town Pasadena.
Ms. Abidi said, “It is often believed that “women’s activism” is an idea that originated in the west, which is not the case. Moreover, I believe it needs to become a global concept rather than regional.”
Empowered Women
Although Lee is traveling as an independent scholar, she is a Pasadena Unified School District trustee and has met with heads of Pakistan charity schools in addition to teachers in K-12 schools. Lee said, “It is interesting to see concepts of public and private in Pakistan and compare them with the United States, especially with public education.”
Dr. Sonia Irum said, “It’s time that woman empowerment should be made part of the curriculum from school education to university; it should be a code of Pakistani life.”
Special circumstances prevented Lee from traveling to Pakistan in 2018, when she received a Fulbright award. “This exhibit, Women Without Borders, has its foundation in that Fulbright project,” Lee said.
Dr. Sofia Hussain said, “I believe this project is playing a significant role in bringing women’s issues to the limelight and engaging women in conversations to understand various layers of patriarchy and the insidious ways in which it works to maintain unjust social structures.”
Major funding was provided by a Pasadena donor, and there was welcome assistance by local Pakistani supporters.
Farida Shaheed, an original member of the Women’s Action Forum in Pakistan in the 1980s.
(L-R) Zarkima from the Kalash Valley and Dr. Sonia Irum, from Islamabad, a member of the Women Without Borders team.
Outreach Flyer and Textile by Behbud Association, Pakistan.
Leave a Reply