Confronting Power: Bani Abidi and Performances of Masculinity

Contemporary Pakistani artist Bani Abidi explores the overlapping and multifaceted relationship between performance, nationalism, and machinations of power. This article focuses on a subset of her work that considers how masculinity relates to these ideas. Specifically, in the works discussed in this article, she interrogates the ways masculinity is produced and maintained, ultimately revealing the hollowness of such performances. Abidi’s own diasporic perspective centres South Asian culture and identities throughout her practice. She draws our attention to universal conditions that govern the world, but does so within a specifically South Asian context. Her work points to the fictive and limiting nature of gender roles, revealing how these performances of political masculinity are legacies of the colonial encounter. By examining how the performance of masculinity operates as a mechanism of power within Abidi’s work, this article uncovers how her work addresses displays of nationalism in Pakistan and India, particularly as it relates to the region’s post colonial history.