For several years now, images and videos of devastation in Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine have become a constant presence online, as war and political upheaval have continued to leave behind scenes of ruined homes and fractured landscapes. For those watching from a distance, these images have become almost impossible to escape, appearing repeatedly across news reports and social media feeds.

Hence, upon stepping into Canvas Gallery and encountering Nausheen Saeed’s solo exhibition ‘Elsewhere, Perhaps’, the first response is an unsettling sense of recognition.

Saeed’s bare concrete structures, roofless and hollow, some appearing partially eroded, immediately recall the gutted remains of buildings seen in images from conflict zones. They resemble not specific places but the familiar visual language of destruction that has become increasingly difficult to look away from.

Untitled II serves as a prominent example: a partially eroded cement structure that mimics the skeletal remnants of a home, its empty window cavities staring back at the viewer like hollow eyes. Untitled V carries that same heavy atmosphere of a terrible aftermath,........

© Dawn (Magazines)