"P.A.H.G.C.P."

A collaborative project with Adnan Madani, in Karachi. We also collaborated last year on the video work, "The Frankfurt School". Here we again made use of the skills of Mahmood the book-binder.

This is the most recent completed project. Participating in the current group exhibition (curated by Mehreen Murtaza and Umer Butt) at Greynoise Gallery, Lahore.
In the show entitled "Patrons of Oh! My God i can buy Art!" opens 25th October 2009.

Our work is entitled:
"People's Art Historical Garden Centre"
A project of P.A.H.P.
(People's Art and Historical Project)
David Chalmers Alesworth and Adnan Madani
Variations: 1/12
Recycled paper and live seeds.
October 2009

PAHP: Tomorrow's History, Today.

"The P.A.H.G.C. aims to create a new and green space for supra-critical reappraisal of the use-value of art history (as written from the point of view of colonial and post-colonial
govern-mentality), by converting the plastic objects of art history into objects of everyday fetish use for the subjects of history. The dissemination of alter-knowledge and the insemination of alter-culture are the short, medium and long term goals of this project, which conforms closely to the will of the people while correspondingly attempting to shape the contours of that will and its future forms."

David Alesworth
Adnan Madani
Lahore
Oct. 2009


Video documentation and context for "P.A.H.G.C.P"


Mahmood with a collection of raw material.
Oxford University Press's "Image and Identity" by Akbar Naquvi.
In this book he describes my practice in the mid 1990's as being more orientated towards
horticulture than art making.


Iqbal Geoffrey to whom this work is in part homage.


Mahmood at work with editioned works behind him.


In the gallery prior to the opening.


The rosta of participating artists in this group show.




Gallery goers and Mahmood at work producing useful paper bags from this troubled text.
Gallery visitors were encourgaded to take away free art-historical bags containing live vegetable seeds.


The work place, finished bags to the right.


The seeds in the foreground are added to each bag.
They are egg plant, melons, cabbage and chillies.


The twelve editioned works, each bag contains some live seeds,
the local seed packets are inserted into each art-historical bag.
Each bag/seed packet combination is mounted on a facsimile herbarium sheet
and framed with acid free archival materials.




This is the hebarium mount for each of the editioned works.

Readings readings readings....(Context only)

Will I will never read fast enough?
How will I ever retain all I need to?

"The Home Front" travelling horticultural experiments

All this has to become work too.......


Weddelia and Washingtonia in the front garden, October 2009.


Luca, from our room to the Olive orchard.


The Olive grove at alta Luca, Tuscan hills.



Unripe Ginko Biloba Seeds from near Cuvrystrasse, Berlin.
Prior to planting. None have sprouted in three months.


The vegetable garden and wormery on my return from Europe.
Almost everything is dead.


How the Tuscan Olive cuttings were at the begining, August 2009.
-three months later only one is still green.






Thuja orinetalis From near Camp Darby, Tuscany.


More unripe Ginko nuts


The summer's seed gleanings


Stop Camp Darby.
Outside Pisa Botanical Garden.
Camp Darby is a 2500 acre US munitions dump in the Tuscan countryside between Luca and Pisa.



Congolese Avocado's



Cat and slug proofing the Ruccola seedlings, moth balls and slug-bait.


Tuscan Olive cuttings

Tuscan olive cuttings


Pots at Lahore nursery.

Baltistan (-towards some new work)

Working for Agha Khan Cultural Services on the Baltit forts,
as the horticultural consultant.
First visit October 2009


Mushtaq's solar dryer house in Saling, he's to the left of his new house.
Mushtaq was a cook in Saudi Arabia for a number of years.
He's now a keen gardener and has a fish farm, garden and restaurant which is
very much of his own taste. He's drying Sea-Buckthorn berries and Apricots here, making a medicinal jam in the kitchen downstairs. The labels carry his email address.


Mushtaq's private museum of local treasures.
Everything is directly labeled, on it's surface.


Between Khaplu and Saling, impossible scale.


Paeony in the gardens at Khaplu fort.
This raises interesting issues about what constitutes an authentic garden here.







The mali's and their tools.


Khaplu fort.



The garden at Khaplu


The mali's herbarium.
All the wild flowers appear the same in this state.


Gardens at Khaplu fort. Mostly raised from imported seeds.
The structure of lack of it is what interests me.


Khaplu fort


Ceiling at Khaplu fort


Khaplu fort


Khaplu fort


Nuts and fruits at Khaplu


The Project




Landing at Shigar fort


the view from Shigar fort, dawn.

So how does this become work?

Obviously diaristically, but also I am intending to undetake interviews with the local inhabitants concerning their ideas about the "garden". There are also some interesting rumours of an english governess and the Mir's son. This may have resulted in a disinheritance, the couple ultimately lived in the gardens of Khaplu fort. I suspect thats how a number of British plants arrived there, and are still persisting hundreds of years later.