Celebrating Artist, Activist and Teacher Lala Rukh on International Women's Day
On 12th February 1983, hundreds of women gathered at The Mall, a major road at the heart of Lahore, Pakistan. In response to a call from the Women’s Action Forum, the women had gathered with the intention of marching to the Lahore High Court to protest the proposed ‘Law of Evidence.’ The latest in a series of laws passed by General Zia-ul-Haq's regime since the military takeover in 1977, the ‘Law of Evidence’ required two women to give evidence to contest that of one man. By sharing their testimony, the law effectively reduced women’s rights to that of half a citizen as President Zia-ul-Haq extended the policy of Islamisation that was central to his regime. Women from different classes, religions and sects met to deliver a petition to the high courts against this Sharia law, but as they advanced down The Mall they discovered that police had cordoned off the area to prevent the protesters from passing. Section 144 had been instated, forbidding public assemblies of more than five people, and police forces had come prepared to clash with the protesters. In the ensuing conflict, police used batons and tear gas on the demonstrating civilians, arresting nearly fifty of the women. This historic moment marks the beginning of moves towards democracy in Pakistan, with February 12th now the official National Women’s Day in Pakistan. Although the ‘Law of Evidence’ still remains intact almost forty years later, the demonstration was the first to contest martial law and placed women at the forefront of change in Pakistan’s society.
Amongst those arrested was the artist, teacher and activist Lala Rukh. A few years earlier she had helped to found Women’s Activist Forum at an impromptu meeting in response to President Zia-ul-Huq’s Hudood Ordinances, which harshly punished citizens for minor breaches. A constant presence at WAF meetings, Lala Rukh risked not only arrest, but her government teaching job as a member of the revolutionary group. After the 12th February protest, Lala Rukh was called into the office of the Principal of the National College of Art where she taught in the Fine Arts Faculty and questioned over her involvement in the demonstration. Where other colleagues were faced with dismissal for illegal political organising, Lala Rukh was permitted to stay.
This allowed Lala Rukh to build her legacy as a teacher, starting at the Punjab University where she had gained her own undergraduate degree in the 1970s before moving to the National College of Art. For thirty years she was a key faculty member, and supported tight knit circles of students, researchers and artists. Lala Rukh was responsible for creating the MA (Hons.) Visual Art program - the first of its kind in the country - which she guided until her retirement from teaching in 2008.
Lala Rukh’s determination and bravery in the face of injustice appears to be at odds with the gentle and thoughtful woman that she has been described as. Her quiet nature is also partly responsible for the relatively late appreciation of her oeuvre by the art world. Hermetic by choice, Lala Rukh kept her studio based art practice more private than her activism and teaching activities. However, her artistic vision informed her activism, and vice versa. When Lala Rukh found that printers were unwilling to reproduce WAF’s subversive message she learnt how to print them herself. Lala Rukh’s contribution to WAF went beyond attending meetings and co-ordinating protests, she designed a method of dramatically collaging newspaper reports to create eye catching posters such as ‘Crimes Against Women’ (1985). By defining the forum’s visual strategy, Lala Rukh is partly responsible for its continued existence as one of the most articulate women’s rights platforms in South Asia, The garden of Lala Rukh’s home in Lahore became a space for screen-printing workshops where materials for WAF activities were produced and circulated from. Ahead of her time, Rukh understood the need for an intersectional approach to activism, creating a screen-printing manual called ‘In Our Own Backyard’ that was available in both English and Urdu. This manual shared her knowledge for self-mobilising groups, and Lala Rukh even traveled across India to reach other grassroots initiatives that she could share her resources with.
Having established her legacy as head of the Fine Arts faculty, Lala Rukh retired from her teaching career in 2008 and returned full-time to her studio. This re-dedication is a key turning point in Lala Rukh’s establishment as an artist in the international field. With the encouragement of her gallery Grey Noise, Dubai, Lala Rukh became a more active exhibitor. Championed by the gallery’s Director, Umer Butt, and researchers like Mariah Lookman, both former students turned friends, Lala Rukh’s body of work reached audiences outside of Pakistan.
Often noted for her minimalist expression, the quiet power that informed Lala Rukh’s radical methodologies can be recognised in her artistic techniques. The two interests met in the 1980s, a time during which Lala Rukh developed the drawing techniques which would be at the heart of her interdisciplinary methods about which she said “drawing was something that I just had to do, and kept doing. The rest of the time I was teaching at the NCA or I was actively involved in the women’s forum.” At the same time as feminist discourse found its footing in Pakistan, drawing was being re-interpreted as an artisitic practise, rather than a medium for preparatory sketches. In Lala Rukh’s work draughtsmanship and mark making blur together to form a visual language that is both precise and expressive. Her early work consists of faintly drawn figures, a product of the rigorous weekly life drawing sessions in which she would have the model move position every thirty seconds. As she trained her drawing ability, Lala Rukh began to use fewer and fewer lines - abstracting the image into only the essential marks. It was around this time, whilst working at the National College of Arts, that she learnt traditional calligraphy, becoming an apprentice to a master calligrapher whilst herself leading a new generation of Pakistani artists. The series 'Hieroglyphics’ exemplifies this period of her work well. Produced over a decade, the ink drawings translate rhythmic patterns into basic units of calligraphy. The lines of writing are enhanced by subtle tonal shifts, an idea explored further in the gradient changes of a work like ‘Heartscape’ (1997). These lines take on the appearance of musical scores, marking the start of a process in which Lala Rukh would create “a coded alphabet of her own making” as Natasha Ginwala describes.
Lala Rukh’s integration of minimalism and calligraphy connected with another, earlier, interest: music. Greatly inspired by the works of sound artist John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham during her second MFA at the University of Chicago, Lala Rukh already nursed an appreciation for music due to her upbringing. Born into a creative and liberal household, Lala Rukh was immersed in the music and movement traditions of the Indian sub-continent as her father Hayat Ahmad Khan, founded the All Pakistan Musical Conference in 1959. Her last work, ‘Rupak’ (2016) would be inspired by the Hindustani dance and music that she had grown up around.
‘Rupak’ was also Lala Rukh’s seminal work. Commissioned for display at Documenta 14, Kassel, the video work consists of 88 drawings of square shaped units in different configurations. Their animation is synchronised with an original composition on the tabla, a musical drum, that is the installation’s soundtrack. The precision of the video’s timing, as stark white shapes dart across the background, has a hypnotic effect on the viewer. In visualising the space between the notes, ‘Rupak’ also subtly reflects on other practices of arrangement such as social division. Lala Rukh’s pared down work reveals a hidden choreography in the clarity of its black and white lines.
From her posters to her drawings, her calligraphy to her videoworks, Lala Rukh’s practice was always marked by the disarming strength of her minimalist expression. Developed over four decades, her estate is now in the hands of her niece and Grey Noise gallery who have placed a number of her works in leading institutions as recognition of her importance grows. ‘Rupak’ was recently acquired for the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and the Tate Modern (London), and her work has been included in recent exhibitions such as Palazzo Grassi’s ‘Luogo e Segni’ for the 58th Venice Biennale.
In a statement on the artist’s passing at the age of 69 in 2017, Grey Noise Art Gallery spoke of her great importance for the body of work she left behind and “for her historical contributions to South Asian art and feminist dialogue.” As light begins to be shed on Lala Rukh’s largely unexamined art practice, it is important to remember that her fight for women’s rights was a commitment that informed all aspects of her life. Of the risk she took in the groundbreaking protest in 1983, Lala Rukh said “that was the atmosphere and those were the stakes.”
Lala Rukh’s legacy as an artist cannot be separated from her contributions as an activist - “of course the line drawing and screen-printing impacted my later practice,” as she said, “nothing that you do goes to waste.” The same philosophy can be applied to those who campaign for a gender equal world today as we celebrate the achievements of women like Lala Rukh on International Women’s Day.
To remember the impact Lala Rukh’s work had and continues to have, read this statement written by her niece and mentee, the artist Maryam Rahman:
12th February 1983, protesters clash with police on Mall Road, Lahore Pakistan.
“For sixteen years, every March 8, I would wish her a Happy New Year, but for Lala every day was a new fight for women’s rights, a fight for their safety, a fight against violence, a fight for their freedom, and a fight to empower them with a sense of being.”
Lala Rukh, ‘Women’s Action Forum Calendar’, offset print, (1985), Image credit: Documenta 14.
A selection of Rukh’s posters and pamphlets for Women’s Action Forum, Pakistan (1980s) on display in the exhibition ‘Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance.’ Image courtesy of De La Warr Pavilion, UK.
Lala Rukh, Hieroglyphics V: Qat-jhaptaal (2008), silver paint on carbon paper, 20.3 × 50.8 cm, Image credit: Documenta 14.
“My drawings were laughed at in Pakistan . . . I was completely isolated,” she told me. “But that was liberating in a way. It gave me an intellectual freedom and I became totally autonomous.”
Lala Rukh’s work on display at Documenta 14, Kassel, Germany. Image credit: Grey Noise Gallery, Dubai.
‘Rupak’, Animation, 6 minutes, 12 seconds, (2016), Image from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection.
“She always came across as a gentle and quiet soul, and perhaps, it can be argued that much of that is reflected in the minimalist aesthetic of her visual work. In contrast, her activism, which ran parallel to her artistic practice, was bold and addressed more urgent issues concerning the rights of women.”
Photograph of a WAF protest in 1987 in response to the killing of two women in Karachi, Lala Rukh (far left) burns a chador when police prevented the demonstrators from marching any further. Photo by Azhar Jaffery.
“Lala Rukh – activist, artist, teacher. Her artistic sensibility gave way to her unique and creative approach to activism. She used her skill-set as an artist to create powerful posters, teach screen-printing to women’s groups across South Asia, photograph demonstrations, archive, and design a variety of activist material.
She stood strong in every demonstration and incorporated those values into her personal life, believing that it wasn’t only the public movement that was important, but equally important was every student over a life-long career of pedagogy she empowered with her gentle and nurturing ways, every girl or woman or child on the street and parks who she could lend a hand to that mattered.
Lala Rukh was a co-founder of the Women’s Action Forum. She was a committed activist and a refined artist. She mentored generations of artists and worked tirelessly all her life for what she believed in. Her work hangs in museums around the world.
She passed away in 2017 but the saplings she planted every morning on her daily walk continue to grow into trees.”