‘Everything Is Happening At Once’ (1 October–18 December) is Rana’s first major public solo show in the UK and celebrates his previous commission in 2007 for the first ever Asia Triennial Manchester. The exhibition intends to challenge the conception of photography and it’s two-dimensional limits with three series of works: Dis-location, a display of photo-sculptures playing on representation and reality; Between Flesh and Blood, a mosaic of juxtaposed imagery from the slaughter house and bodily wounds with photographs of the traditional Persian carpet, which represents idealised beauty, culture and craft; and An Idea of Abstract. The latter presents the work  Desperately Seeking Paradise II, which appears to depict the panoramic skyline of an imaginary city but that is, in actual fact, composed of thousands of smaller images of Lahore (see above).

 

‘Everything Is Happening At Once’ is sure to trick, challenge and question your preconceived notions of what you might be looking at, it’s plausible scale and medium. Most interestingly, Rana offers a simultaneously romantic and raw representation of his home city of Lahore. This kind of intimate yet critical perspective is hard to come by, and therefore worth a visit.

 

‘Everything Is Happening At Once’ fits nicely into the Triennial’s overriding theme of ‘Time and Generation’. For almost two months Manchester will become a festival of arts and crafts through a series of exhibitions, commissions and public interventions to both celebrate and challenge Asian artistic practice. Artists from India, Istanbul, China, Korea, the Philippines and UK will use ‘Time and Generation’ to visually discuss the politics of migration, identity, community, changed demographics and global economics.

 

Asia Triennial Manchester is conceived by Shisha, the UK’s international agency for contemporary South Asian crafts and visual arts, in partnership with Bury Art Gallery, Castlefield Gallery, Chinese Arts Centre, Cornerhouse, The International 3, John Rylands Library, MadLab, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester metropolitan University, People’s History and Whitworth Art Gallery.

 

For more information see asiatriennialmanchester.com

 

Image credit: Desperately Seeking Paradise II, 2010 – 11, by Rashid Rana. UV print on aluminum and stainless steel. 386.4 x 386.4 x 332.1cm. Installation view at Lisson Gallery, London. Photo: Ken Adlard, courtesy of the Tiroche DeLeon collection & Art Vantage Ltd.

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