Unveiling Queer Aesthetics and Ruin Discourses in Postcolonial Art: A Talk by Sadia Abbas

Sadia Abbas describes Shazia Sikandar’s work Pleasure Pillars (2001) as “a world of women upheld by women,” where female figures resist patriarchal and colonial narratives

In her recent talk entitled “QUEER RUIN: Postcolonial Remix and Classical Remix in Shahzia Sikander's Work,” Professor Sadia Abbas (Rutgers University, Newark) presented her exploration of postcolonial aesthetics, gender, and cultural memory through her concept of "ruin monument discourse." Abbas examined how Western traditions of idealizing ruins reinforce colonial power and concepts of racial superiority, influencing our understanding of art, history, and identity. Her analysis of contemporary artist Shahzia Sikander’s works, Pleasure Pillars and Promiscuous Intimacies, underscores how postcolonial art can subvert these hegemonic frameworks and offer alternative ways of relating to cultural narratives. The Orfalea Center held the event on November 15, 2023.

Sadia Abbas explains the concept of “ruin monument discourse”

Ruin Monument Discourse and the Legacy of Empire

Sadia Abbas opened by explaining "ruin monument discourse": a term she uses to critique the Western tradition of aestheticizing ruins to assert colonial and racial superiority. This discourse, rooted in Enlightenment ideals, positioned ancient Greece and Rome as the origins of Western civilization and justified colonial dominance. Abbas emphasized that ruins are not merely artifacts but symbols of exclusionary identity politics. “Ruins,” she noted, “are represented in picturesque and antiquarian engravings, celebrated with fervent melancholy in literature, and claimed by philosophy as both origin and endpoint.”

Abbas highlighted how this framework often marginalizes the living, favoring nostalgia for an idealized past. “The living,” she said, “are entirely disposable in this equation. It’s all about the bloody past.” Drawing connections to modern contexts, she noted that this discourse extends beyond Europe, influencing nationalist ideologies in places like India and Israel. Abbas underscored how ruins have been entangled with the displacement of populations, stating, “Ruins have been entwined with the forcible displacement of some populations and the right of other populations to dispose of their futures.”

Shahzia Sikander: Reimagining Ruin and Gender

Shifting focus, Abbas examined the work of Shahzia Sikander, a Pakistani-American artist whose pieces disrupt and reinterpret ruin monument discourse. In Pleasure Pillars, Sikander juxtaposes Western classical motifs with Islamic and South Asian aesthetics, creating a layered, fragmented space. Abbas described the painting as “a world of women upheld by women,” where female figures resist patriarchal and colonial narratives.

Abbas presents images of Shahzia Sikander's sculpture Promiscuous Intimacies (2020) from multiple angles

Abbas also discussed Promiscuous Intimacies (2020), a sculpture that embodies what she called a “queer reorientation” of space and identity. Featuring intertwined figures from Hindu and Western traditions, the work challenges binaries like East and West, masculine and feminine. Abbas highlighted the intimacy and delicacy of the sculpture, particularly in the way Venus cups the foot of the other figure. “That gesture,” she explained, “captures a kind of refinement – what we call nazakat in South Asian culture – that you rarely see in Western art.” For Abbas, Sikander’s work not only critiques historical narratives but also transforms the visual language of postcolonial art. By working within the miniature painting tradition, Sikander reclaims a form often dismissed in Western art history as lacking perspective or modernity. “Sikander takes all of that history,” Abbas noted, “and turns it on its head, telling the story of the West in a language that is fundamentally modernist and non-Western.”

Following the Q&A session with a full audience, Abbas connected with several students

A Call to Critique and Reimagine

Abbas concluded by urging her audience to critically examine how history is represented and weaponized in both art and politics. She called for a shift in focus from nostalgic idealizations of the past to the living realities of the present and the possibilities for the future. “We think modernity is about progress,” Abbas argued, “but it is always fundamentally about the past.”