As air pollution levels reach a record global high in Lahore this week, the third edition of the Lahore Biennale (LB03) titled Of Mountains and Seas came to a close, having run from October 6 to November 8. While the smog enveloping the city somewhat marred the closing week, it also made the theme for LB03, centred on the themes of ecologies and sustainable futures, all the more poignant, relevant and urgent.

A biennale is a largescale city-wide exhibition and celebration of contemporary art named after the cities in which it takes place. While there have been many largescale exhibitions in history, the biennale (Italian for ‘biennial’ or ‘every other year’) was popularised by the Venice Biennale, first held in 1895 and to date considered one of the leading art exhibitions in the world.

The Lahore Biennale, a relatively new addition to the international art scene, was initiated in 2018. The second edition in 2020 was curated by Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, president and director of the Sharjah Art Foundation and the powerhouse behind the Sharjah Biennale. The third edition built on the success of the previous ones by showcasing groundbreaking contemporary art from some 60 artists from over 30 countries in an array of site-specific exhibits and immersive installations.

Qudsia Rahim, Executive Director of Lahore Biennale Foundation, said, “Given the relative scarcity of regional dialogues within South Asia, the biennale aims to foster a deeper and multifaceted exchange within Asia and the rest of the world, and to contribute to a shared and sustainable future.”

The biennale activated cultural heritage sites across the city, ranging from the seventeenth century Lahore Fort and Shalimar Gardens, built during the reign of Mughal emperors Akbar and Shahjahan respectively, to the British Raj era Lahore Museum, Bradlaugh Hall, Nasir Bagh and the iconic Pak Tea House, a gathering place for authors, poets and revolutionaries from the 1940s to its heyday in the 80s, to more contemporary locations such as the Orange Line Metro stations. The stations featured the stunning blue and orange artworks by Imran Qureshi, part of a series of exhibitions at various sites drawing attention to the hydrology of Lahore where scheduled water delivery necessitates the use of backup plastic water tanks which are normally strikingly blue in colour. Qureshi transformed these blue tanks into art, painting them with abstract splatters and floral patterns.

John Tain, the Curator of LB03, said, “By placing historic sites in dialogue with more contemporary works, LB03 brings to light the ways the city’s celebrated culture, architecture, and gardens, generally understood to symbolise its palimpsest of connections to Asia and Europe through trade routes and the migration of people and knowledge, also connects with more recent conversations about the significance of historical and indigenous forms of knowledge and practices as necessary alternatives to the extractivism that plagues modern societies.”

Walking the dusty streets in the historic neighbourhoods or the noisy Mall Road teeming with traffic under a smog-choked Lahori sky with fellow Biennale delegates — artists, curators and researchers from around the world — made one palpably present to the climate emergency facing this ancient city, a hub of art and culture for millennia, a city famed for its gardens and rivers.

Dryden Goodwin’s exhibition Breathe could not have been more apt. Breathe: Lahore, displayed at iconic sites like Bradlaugh Hall and Mall Road, along with over 1,000 digital billboards, highlights Lahore’s air quality crisis.

The project’s international debut features illustrations of Pakistani clean air activist Abid Omar, founder of the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative, a group tackling air pollution through research, data, and advocacy. Goodwin’s drawings of Omar join those of six London-based activists, expanding the project’s focus on global air quality issues.

Speaking of mountains, Hamra Abbas’s Aerial Studies series depicts melting glaciers in northern Pakistan, home to some of the highest peaks in the world. The works, created in marble inlay, reflects her engagement with local workshops in Lahore and act as a reminder of the vulnerability of mountain ecosystems.

Moving from the mountains to the seas, Ravi Agarwal’s I am Going to the Sea, Clear the Path at the recently restored Royal Kitchens at the Lahore Fort was a photographic and sound installation focusing on the endangered Indus and Ganges River dolphins, whose evolutionary history spans over 25 million years. Native to freshwater bodies, these sightless dolphins now struggle with water treaties, pollution, dams, and fishing nets.

On a similar theme, the theatrical performance Humming with Ravi by activist Madhu Abuzar accompanied by Punjabi folk music at the Al Hamra Art Centre lamented the ‘murder of the Ravi’. The Ravi, one of the oldest and grandest rivers in South Asia, has been obliterated by dam projects and heavy pollution. The moving performance ended with a call to action to preserve and restore the river systems.

John Tain noted, “By positioning Lahore as a strategic location for global efforts to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis, LB03 signals the need to shift agency for environmental discourse to the very societies that will be most affected”.

This need could not have been more pressing and LBO3’s ambition to put art and culture at the forefront of responding to issues of climate change could not have been more urgent. The event wasn’t just a chance to look at stunning, groundbreaking contemporary art but a powerful call to action for local and international communities to join forces to put these issues at the forefront of imagining sustainable futures for all.