I Am Neem: Healing as an Act of Resistance in Karachi

By Zoya Alina Currimbhoy

On Friday, February 13th, the Gulgee Museum in Karachi, Pakistan hosted an exhibition of performance, new media, and installation art. Curated by Amin Gulgee and Noor Ahmed, the exhibition marked 10 years of the Karachi Biennale Trust and the launch of Karachi Biennale 2027. A unique location for what was truly an immersive show, live performers, video and photography, sculptures and paintings scattered throughout the building and its grounds, every artwork original and welcoming of audience participation. A collage of visuals, sounds, languages, and interpretations. Uncommon for a city like Karachi, known as the financial, industrial, and commercial capital of Pakistan, where people of all spiritual, and cultural backgrounds converge in hybrid aesthetics and syncretic traditions. It is rare that a curation like this reminds us of that feeling, while allowing the social and personal undercurrents to rise to the surface.

The exhibition was anchored by the theme “Aaj aur Kal” (today and tomorrow) a phrase that echoes tangible nearness, inevitability, and an observation of identity and time. As a commissioned artist for this show, and as a Pakistani woman, this theme hit differently for me, because the distance between Aaj and Kal isn’t as wide as one would like to believe. Today I am free to assert myself, to move through the world with a sense of agency, opportunity, and generosity of spirit. That freedom, and everything I love about it, is a direct reflection of the visible, and invisible labour of every woman who came before me and insisted on being taken seriously in the face of violent and active opposition. The Kal is not just history, it is infrastructure, it is the foundation that Aaj is built on. On a very visceral level this fight is still felt, the pain has not been forgotten nor can it.

There is a whole other history around the fight for women’s rights that is often just not taught in schools. In 1983 there was a march in Lahore to protest the Law of Evidence, a legislation that sought to reduce a woman’s legal testimony to half the value of a man’s, effectively making her an incomplete witness to her own experience. The systematic use of state power and religious authority to contain women’s voices, their bodies, and civic rights is a wound that hasn’t yet closed. The march was horribly distributed by police using tear gas, batons, and arrests.[1]

That same year in Lahore, a manifesto was signed and drafted by fifteen prominent female artists for themselves that acknowledged the soft power they held despite the decline in the status and condition of the life of Pakistani women. It affirmed principles around freedom of expression and cultural development. Despite efforts of political and social oppressed at that time, women artists, writers, and social scientists were on the forefront the country’s liberal cultural development. They dominated creative institutions that they themselves nurtured.[2]

The artwork I created for ‘Aaj aur Kal’ grew out of absorbing stories from the past. As a recipient of all the labour that came before me, I wanted to create a space of rest, a space post struggle, where the body could finally exhale. From this need was born ‘I am Neem’: a performance exploring the visceral embodiment of unpalatability and healing, the reclamation, and surrender of oneself. The neem leaf is traditionally known for its medicinal properties, but famously bitter to taste. Not everything that tries to heal is easy to digest. So too is the tradition of enacting change within an ecosystem that wanted to handicap you.

In my performance, the properties of local spices were heated, activated, and embodied, reclaiming a charged space of healing rooted in communal knowledge, intuition, and nature. I worked with neem leaves, turmeric, and basil seeds as material and metaphor. These spices are often used in South Asian traditions as herbal medicine to soothe throats, aid digestion, calm the nervous system, and build immunity. I performed under the shadow of a freestanding door, a faux buffer between the private and the public.

On a bed of rose petals, I sat with my spices around me. I heated basil seeds over a flame and wrapped them into small cloth bundles, which were pressed against my body as a compress to alleviate muscle pain. I crushed dried neem leaves, lubricated them with apricot oil, and covered myself with the mixture. I ground turmeric roots, mixed them with oil, and applied it to key areas of my body. The actions were like a ritual created for myself that allowed me to check in with my body, it was a way of connecting with the earth, trusting it, and giving it all the emotional weight. This artwork for me was about being raw, messy, undone. In a world that normalises so much wounding, healing is an act of resistance.

Find out more:

Website: www.zoyacurrimbhoy.com

Instagram: @zoyaalinac

Photo credits: Mehran Qureshi

References:

[1] Dawn (2019) ‘Women remember iconic 1983 demo, vow to fight oppression’, Dawn, 13 February.

Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/1463551 (Accessed: 8 April 2026)

[2] Hashmi, S. (1997) ‘An intelligent rebellion: women artists of Pakistan’, India International Centre Quarterly, 24(2/3), pp. 228–238.

Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23005448 (Accessed: 8 April 2026).

Written by Zoya Alina Currimbhoy.

Posted by Elyssa Sykes-Smith.