Interdisciplinary artist Aqsa Arif grew up watching Bollywood blockbusters and soap operas from Lollywood (named after Lahore, Pakistan’s film industry). When she made Raindrops Of Rani, a sumptuous, technicolour short film featured in her exhibition of the same name, she borrowed from those melodramatic tropes, blending them with embroidery, screenprints and traditional South Asian folklore. Arif worked with her mum on the script, reimagining Heer, a Punjabi folk tale princess, as someone displaced into a Scottish council flat.

‘I was born in Lahore; my family moved to the UK in 2001 and went through the asylum system,’ says Arif. ‘We lived in a high-rise flat for seven years before we got permanent citizenship. It was an area of Glasgow with lots of refugees and lower socio-economic backgrounds: people who’d been in jail or with drug and alcohol issues. The area felt unsafe; there was often fighting, so my mum wouldn’t let me go to the park without a chaperone.’

Raindrops Of Rani explores a mother/daughter relationship alongside themes of fractured identity, preserving tradition, fear and hostility. ‘The mother has decided staying inside is best,’ notes Arif. ‘The daughter has to engage, go to school; she doesn’t have that choice. I was interested in nostalgic, sugar-coated worlds and playing around with fantasy. I wanted to tell both sides carefully, without one side being right or bad. I didn’t expect there to be so much universality, but I’ve had lovely feedback from all generations. I worked with an older Muslim women’s friendship group from [Glasgow grassroots community organisation] Amina. I was worried they’d hate it. They related to both characters. I felt good that I’d portrayed the community in a nuanced, not stereotyped way.’ 

Following a long-term residency with Kelvingrove Art Gallery And Museum, Arif had her 2022 short film The Mountain Of Light added to the permanent collection at Riverside Museum this year. She joined Lux Scotland as learning programme manager and is working on a film about the Lakshmi statue, unearthed at Pompeii. ‘A big part of my practice now is about decolonising history.’ 

Main picture: Neil Hanna.

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