Category: Politics

A Touching Story of Healing Hands-London

Artist and masseur Ali Zaidi gets hands-on about healing the body, mind and spirit. Ignore the picture though, he doesn’t practice rake-i.

Let me begin by saying that I was not always comfortable with my body the way I accept, respect and love it now. Love is an important word that I repeatedly return to throughout my work as a self-confessed connector. Continue reading A Touching Story of Healing Hands-London

Drawn from Life

This spring after a gap of over 30 years when I started to draw again, it was followed by, “Why did you stop in the first place?” There isn’t a straight forward answer to this, however I applaud my learning and un-learning that’s revitalised me to exhibit drawings for the first time in London.

From my teen years the prefix ‘mono’ left me craving for more. For me mono denies Abundance. Not that mono is good or bad per se, however, wether it be monogamy, monotheism, monopoly, monosyllabic, monologue or monolith, I have always had a propensity towards POLY. Whilst I adore the drama of the monochrome, I find Polychrome fantastic. While I respect a mono-theist’s singularity of belief, I believe in a universe of many Gods. All interconnected energies and faiths pass through my heart. I LOVE loving many. Pantheism feels aligned with my being. Continue reading Drawn from Life

Tantra according to HealingHands-London

What is Tantra? Ali Zaidi of HealingHands-London distills from the many interpretations in what resonates for him. 

Tantra: Weaving a tapestry of energies. The metaphor of weaving illustrates Tantra the best. Weaving can be traced back 12,000 years ago. Its a craft which uses distinct set of threads; the warp and weft, interlaced at right angles to produce fabric. Tantra means to ‘weave’ polarities.

Continue reading Tantra according to HealingHands-London

1001 UnMasked ~ hyper-real portraits of gender

1001 UnMasked ~ hyper-real portraits of gender brings together individual perspectives on gender and sexualities aurally and visually. What does it mean to be a man or a woman in the 21st century? What are the spaces in between these binaries?  What is masculinity or femininity other than a culturally specific performance?

Till early last year I was calling this body of work Mas(k)culinities for reasons that seemed right at the time. Masculinity is stigmatized and problematized and I sought different sexualities to explore the breadth of being male. During this period voices and images of women were included to elaborate masculinity from their perspective. Soon I realized that fissures and scars caused by these simplistic binaries run very deep within all of us. Obliged to play out the ‘normative’ roles assigned from the time of our births onwards, is a patriarchal hegemony that has to be challenged. Individual point of views that encompass realities beyond dictates of the mainstream is the only way to disrupt this control. We have to create safe spaces for celebrating the ‘human’ in all its manifestations rather than be threatened by difference. Continue reading 1001 UnMasked ~ hyper-real portraits of gender