SALA goes virtually on June 17
@artforumsf #VirtuallySALA2021 #healingthroughart #salimahashmi #asianartmuseum @artforumsf @asianartmuseum @mirahashmi @NouveauIDEA
Art Forum SF will host the Virtually SALA (South Asian Literature & Arts) on June 17th, Live Series with featured talks through the year 2021, as a precaution due to COVID-19 pandemic, till it is safe to congregate in a festival setting.
The headline of the event will be “Healing through Art”, featuring Salima Hashimi, acclaimed Pakistani artist and public intellectual, in conversation with Mira Hashmi, introduction by Dr. Robert Mintz, deputy director of the Asian Art Museum.
The South Asian Literature and Art Festival showcases contemporary reflections of literature and arts from the sub-continent.
“The world we live in sometimes may seem like it is enveloped in darkness and entangled in a web of chaos and suffering, especially in this past year of communal anguish,” asserted Ms. Kiran Malhotra, Board of Director, Art Forum SF. Furthermore, Ms. Malhotra refers to Joe Haldeman, American Film Director, News Writer, who once said, “Anyone who sees clearly, sees chaos. Art is a way of temporarily setting order to confusion.”
“Salima Hashmi is a true rarity in this world, an accomplished painter, a successful educator, a vocal change agent, a feminist, an activist, and inspiration. Her life and work mark a social change path and transformation from which she has never wavered or strayed. Her art, her words, and her actions all drive her quest for a better world,” said Dr. Robert Mintz, Deputy Director, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, manages the curatorial, conservation, education, and museum services departments.
Salima Hashmi is an artist, curator, and contemporary art historian. Professor Hashmi was the founding Dean of the Mariam Dawood School of Visual Art and Design at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. She was Professor of Fine Art at National College of Arts [NCA] Lahore and was also Principal of the College.
Salima Hashmi has written extensively on the arts. Her book “Unveiling the Visible – Lives and Works of Women Artists of Pakistan” was published in 2002, and ‘Memories, Myths, Mutations – Contemporary Art of India and Pakistan’ co-authored with Yashodhara Dalmia for Oxford University Press, India in 2006. She has edited ‘The Eye Still Seeks – Contemporary Art of Pakistan for Penguin Books, India, in 2014.
Mira Hashmi is a film study assistant professor at the Lahore School of Economics. A graduate of the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University in Montreal, Mira has over three decades of writing experience about film for various publications. Her interest includes the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock and Hindi masala movies. Her first book, Gulzar’s Ijaazat: Insights into the Film, was published in 2019.
In October 2019, Art Forum SF debuted the South Asian Literature and Art (SALA) festival with grand success at the Montalvo Arts Center’s picturesque site in Saratoga, California. The festival featured prominent experts experienced in the cultural-literary-artistic histories of South Asian countries and different aspects of the humanities to give talks, have exhibitions and performances, book reading for local audiences.

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