More - Truck art in Fashion

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On May 11th..

On 5/11/07 7:46 PM, wrote: Haniah Omar

As u know how each truck has 2 personalities, the front (serious & religious) and the back (funny & sarcastic..aphorisms). well the problem is that.. even though there are two personalities.. there are 3 different sides of a bus!

front, back and SIDE (situates the vehicle and contact information)!!! so i cant decide whether to say one truck 2 personalities or one truck 3 personalities!

I asked Nur:

Hey haniah

I think work with the characteristics of the front and back as they
have opposing concepts and that will interest the audience.

Use the side in the book or other materails.

thanks

Evolution of truck art

Here you can see how the Mogul Artists used to create Illuminated Manuscripts with poetry on the same composition. This is where the form of using poetry to support the graphics in Truck art evolves from.



Here is a box from the Iranian Art era, it not only displays similar motifs to Truck art present day but also colors. The color palette that is used to create this box are the same if not similar colors to what the truck artists use today.



Here is a Vase from the Mamluk Dynasty from 1350, here you can tell why the truck artists use Vase to represent an openess, that as a graphic element it is used to either support 'good luck' or ' wel come'.



Here is a Khudabad tile design from Turkey, (1236) where the use of peacocks in islamic art is a key element of design. Similarly the peacock is used in present day truck art aswell. The shape of the tile is an 8 sided star, and in truck art the artists may use a 2-4-6 sided star as well.

Forum: Cars and Trucks Discussion

As part of my research, i said that these truck are decorated as if it is a feminization of them. Here i found someone commenting on a truck and refering to it as a bride.






link: http://davesgarden.com/place/t/446427/

HAT International Research Fellowships

HAT International Research Fellowships
(South Asia Research Trip)

Truck Art

Before motorized transport, traders moved goods along routes from the coast of Pakistan inland to Central Asia using heavily decorated camel caravans. This tradition continues today with painted trucks and buses, which continue to identify ethnic groups. It is possible to look at a truck and identify which region it comes from and what ethnic group the driver belongs to.




Within Karachi, a port city of 14 million on the Arabian Sea, more than 50,000 people work in small, family-run workshops comprised of apprentices and trained artisans, each with a well-defined specialty. Every hand-painted truck, bus and rickshaw are unique. Truck owners are willing to spend a small fortune to do this. A decent paint job costs £300 to £600 - perhaps more, depending on how detailed it is. Body decoration and repair can easily run an extra £1200, equivalent to two years of the average truck drivers salary. As a rule, however, owners or owner-drivers pay for the decoration, although hired drivers employed by a company are often free to choose whatever illustrations they like.

This labour intensive operation usually takes six to ten weeks. During this period, many drivers hover around the workshops like part of the extended family, suggesting possible subjects and alterations, earning nothing during the time their truck is being prepared. A full makeover of a vehicle can happen every three or four years.


link: http://www.hat.mmu.ac.uk/southasia/index6.html

Article by Tim Hyland

The Painted Trucks of Pakistan



October 19, 2006

By: Tim Hyland

Like many others in Pakistan, Jamal J. Elias took the exquisitely painted trucks so common in that country for granted. Then, one day, he stopped, looked—and wondered: “Why?”

“You see them everywhere,” says Elias. “But a lot of people don’t see them. One day I started staring at them, very carefully. And I started to see there was some order to the madness.”

Elias, a Penn professor of religious studies, has been staring at those remarkable trucks—and studying the people responsible for making them—ever since. It’s a culture that produces highly ornate designs, at great cost, and places them on most all of Pakistan’s working vehicles, from trucks and buses to vans and taxis. Even animal carts are decorated.
And while painted trucks can also be found in South America, India and elsewhere, nowhere are the designs as elaborate, or as ubiquitous, as they are in Pakistan.

Yet, even though he’s years into his research, Elias still isn’t quite sure of the motivation behind the painted trucks. He plans to return to Pakistan this summer to continue his work.

“Vehicle decoration, in general, is old,” he says. “The first guy who invented the wheel probably hung something from his cart. People used to decorate their horses … But the degree to which they do it [in Pakistan] is unique. India has some of this, but there is an exponential difference between the two.”

Elias has taken thousands of photographs of the trucks in the course of his research. He’s also conducted in-depth interviews with truck owners who make the designs possible—the decorations, which consist of hammered metal, mosaic and paint, cost up to $5,000 per truck and take around five weeks to complete—and the artists, despite their great talent, suffer horrible pay and don’t even enjoy the respect of their neighbors. Generally speaking, Elias says, these artists could enjoy better pay and better societal standing if they were restoring furniture.

“Some of these guys, they’re very good,” says Elias, who comes to Penn this semester from Amherst College. “But they can’t get legit work. What they do is not considered legit.”

Elias learned that when, early in his research, he told a group of Pakistanis about his research on the trucks.

“They thought I was crazy,” he says.

Though Elias’ research may appear to be about little more than kitschy pop art, he believes the painted trucks—whose designs include everything from humorous poetry (usually found on the rear bumper) to religious imagery (almost always on the front of the bus)—could help shed light on many aspects of Pakistani culture.

That’s true in part because trucking is such an important facet of Pakistan’s economy. The nation has little in the way of railroad infrastructure, so most of the nation’s basic goods are transported by truck. For a nation with 160 million people, that’s a lot of goods being moved by a lot of trucks.

“I believe [by studying the trucks] there’s a great deal you can learn about religious attitudes, about social attitudes, about attitudes toward modernity,” Elias says. “We’re talking about a very large section of society. I think [this research] is a way of doing religious history, or social history, but doing it against the grain.”

link: http://www.upenn.edu:9000/researchatpenn/article.php?1131&soc

Article by By Shoaib Ahmed

A local magazine (Daily Times) from Pakistan printed an article about the Truck Art inspired products from www.tribaltruckart.com :

LAHORE: An exhibition titled ‘Tribal Truck Art’ commenced at the Alliance Francaise de Lahore on Saturday. The exhibition is unique since it displays truck paintings on various household items. Over 100 objects were on display including wooden boxes, stools, chairs, benches, wall hanging carts, lanterns, lamps, mirrors, buckets and kettles.

Anjum Rana, the inspiration behind the exhibition, told Daily Times that from an early age she had been fascinated by the paintings done on trucks. She said that after a long search she had managed to find Ghulam Sarwar, an exceptional truck painter, in Kemari Karachi. Ms Rana added that most people perceived truck paintings as cheap and ridiculed the art; but it had a beauty that should be appreciated. She said that the exhibition was the first of its kind.

Explaining her interest in truck paintings Ms Rana said that most of her life had been spent on the frontier and she had become accustomed to seeing beautiful paintings on trucks. “I have also saved a number of the quotations written on trucks in my notebook,” she said.

Mr Sarwar said that he had been painting trucks for many years. He said that he had completed the displayed artwork in a span of two years. He said his students Suhail, Asad and Yunus had helped him in the artworks. He said that truck painting was an art and required a great deal of skill but people took it for granted.

A number of art lovers were present during the exhibition including the Director of the French Centre Matthieu Pinel and Principal of the National College of Arts (NCA) Sajida Vandal.

Space Truckin' - a blog article

LINK: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//002607.html

I was as flabbergasted as you when I saw these images of Pakistani truck art. Popular in the Indus valley region, it began prior to the Partition, according to Peter Grant, the photographer.

This extraordinary tradition has it's routes in the days of the Raj when craftsmen made glorious horse drawn carriages for the gentry. In the 1920's the Kohistan bus company asked the local Michaelangelo, Ustad Elahi Buksh, a master craftsmen to decorate their buses to attract passengers. Buksh employed a community of artists from the Punjab town of Chiniot, who's ancestors had worked on many great palaces and temples dating back to the Mogal Empire.
It was not long before truck owners followed suite with their own designs. Through the years the materials used have developed from wood and paint to metal, tinsel, plastic and reflective tape. Within the last few years trucks and buses have been further embellished with full lighting systems.

A new undecorated bus costs around £3000 after which owners can expect to pay a further £5000 for a complete decoration which can take up to three months. The cost of decorating a truck is around £3000 on top of the £1500 paid for a new vehicle. Artists are paid between £1.50 and £3 per day.

The photographs were were brought to my attention by ace videoblogger Soumyadeep Paul, who also has a fascinating photoblog on India, featuring many stills from Rajasthan, my homeland.
Rohit Gupta

storyboard (initial)

This is my initial storyboard. There are changes being made in it considering the software limits. Also the changes that are being made are decisions depending on whether my animation is legible. This animation is still in progress. I will upload the first version on the 11th March.

Symbolism in Truck Art

Here are some of the symbols and what they represent in our culture. These concepts are what i have taken forward in my animation which is under process.

Documentary on Truck Art

Here a documentary by Eckova Productions on Truck art from Pakistan.

All across Pakistan, from the Arabian Sea coast to the peaks of the Himalayas, the highways and roads are constantly busy with trucks carrying goods. Although this may be a common sight in any country, the difference here is the curious and unusual practice of creating works of art on trucks, unique to Pakistan and parts of the Indian subcontinent. These canvases on the move are an art-form in themselves and have an inimitable style.

(http://www.eckova.com/eckovap/htmls/welcome.asp)

Fashion inspired by Truck art - Karachi

This is a shop in Karachi selling designer clothing by renowned fashion designer Maheen from Karachi, Pakistan. Designer and founding member of Pakistan Fashion Design Council Maheen Khan's business acumen and impeccable fashion taste has allowed her to be relevant to Pakistani designing in the sixties when she first started out, and her Gulabo line is the trendiest collection inspired by the Art off the streets of Karachi (truck Art).

Questionairre tabulation

Some of my key questions at this stage w

Principles of Truck Art

1. Ornate Metal Cowling
2. Framing
3. Plastic Applique (ornamental pieces sewn or stuck to form a pattern)
4. Mosaics
5. Motifs
a) Idealised elements from Life (landscapes/women)
b) Elements of Modern life (Tv, War, media inspired)
c) Talismanic and fetish objects (these represent good luck and fortune)
d) Religious Symbols such as fish, eyes, Buraq (half horse half woman)
6. Feminization of the Truck
7. Two personalities in one truck (the front and the Back showing different view points)

First draft for Principle Aesthetics of Truck Art

At this point after all my weeks of analysis and research i was able to generate a first draft of the Principles of Truck Art form Pakistan. Basically what i derived was that Truck Art is created on the following principles;

1. Framing
2. Bright Contrasting Colors
3. Islamic Geometric Patterns
4. Flat perspective
5. Poetry
6. Motifs from Popular Culture

Pop Art Vs Truck Art

I found a big similarity in Pop Art and Truck Art, mainly being that they are both inspired by 'Popular Culture'. According to wikipedia;

Pop art is one of the major art movements of the Twentieth Century. Characterized by themes and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising and comic books, pop art is widely interpreted as either a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism or an expansion upon them. Pop art, like pop music, aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture. Pop art at times targeted a broad audience, and often claimed to do so.

Week 3 - 10th to 16th Dec

I had my weekly supervision with Nur in which we discussed my project and i shared with her my idea for creating a book of symbols of Truck Art. This book idea at this point was not only for the symbolism but also the history and comparative ananlysis of Truck art with other similar untutored art forms.

week 2 - 3rd Dec to 9th Dec

I spent most of time analyzing the ethnographic study i had conducted in Karachi. The process of painting the truck, the different stages. My interviews with the truck artists who were not very eager to be filmed thus i had to take down notes. But the shops that were selling the various truck art designs in sticker format were inspiring. These shops were filled with bright colors and all kinds of motifs. From Osama Bin Laden to PIA (Pakistan International Airways) airplanes to flowers, these shops were loaded with truck art goodies.

Week 1 - 26th dec to 2nd Dec

The first week after i returned to Singapore after my 2 weeks in Karachi was spent analyzing my fresher ethnographic study. During my visit to Karachi i was able to not only take more photographs of truck art but i also conducted interviews. I conducted interviews with Sharik Chapra (creative head of PLAY and AAJ Channels), as well as Shireen Syed (Teacher of Illustration at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture). I was also able to goto an area titled 'garden'. This is where all the truck artists are found along with shops selling truck art designs and motifs.

'Garden'; this area is located at 1 and a half hours drive away from main Karachi. To get to it we had to drive through some very bad road conditions. Once we reached it i was bombarded with this completely different market. I was surrounded on both sides by little shops selling artwork for trucks. From stickers to metal cowling to painting, this market had it all. I then met with a couple of truck owners and sadly only 2 artists. But it was a worthwhile trip. I learned not only about the motifs used on these trucks but which part of Pakistan the truck belongs to. For Example: a truck owner told me; the shiny and glossy designs are from Karachi, whereas the more Matte coloring with metal cowling is from Punjab. The sides of the trucks are where the name of the owner/driver/painter/vehicle number and so on are shown.

This week i spent in organizing all my recorded data.