Author: Atia Newman
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Naulakha: Lahore Fort
Making this Fort is an ambitious project, especially since the buildings within span the tastes of four generations of Mughal Emperors. I don’t know what possessed me to try to make the Naulakha (or the Queen’s Pavillion). Maybe it’s because this is one of the smallest monuments in this Fort, or maybe because I had…
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Babur
The first of the Great Mughals, Babur was the orphan king who ascended to the throne as an 11-year old. In the decades that followed, he experienced great strife and turmoil, but his unbeatable spirit won the loyalties of armies and followers across Central and South Asia.
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Islamic Patterns
Despite not having concrete measurements to officially start builing elements of the Fort, I decided to go ahead and see if I could solve the (inevitable) issues of creating this monument before we get started. This has led me through quite a process! I build things, hate them and build again. I’ve had a similar…
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Lahore Fort: Getting Started
After a couple of months of just writing about the Lahore Fort Project, I finally decided to go back into 3D and try to make something! This was harder than I expected. There are a million components to everything, and literally every surface has some new and intricate pattern all over it!Even as I try…
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The Fort
The Mughal Empire holds a great significance in Pakistan, being the last Islamic Dynasty to rule this part of Asia before the British occupation in the 19th century. Unfortunately, much of what was created in this era was undermined as part of the British Divide and Rule policy, and this ridicule has been internalized and…
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Introducing… The Lahore Fort 2.0
“Sometimes going back to the beginning is the only way.”― Rachel Hauck, Once Upon a Prince After two decades of meandering through various art media and exploring a number of philosophical avenues, I seem to have come full circle back to a project that has suddenly evolved into a whole new animal. But before I…
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A Pivotal Exploration
In an unexpected turn of events, it seems I cannot move forward with the Dynamic Addis. So I am redirecting current explorations and revisiting the graveyard of ideas and projects from my past. I’m sure every artist has one. The place where you keep those projects that were “finished” but never met your standards, or…
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Revisiting the Iroquois Creation Story in 2020
Five years after it’s first launch, the Iroquois Creation Story (or ICS for short) is enjoying a mini-revival in 2020. With the sparking of a brand-new (old) conversation about diversity in animation and appropriate cultural representation, this project is being used as a prime example of how to respectfully represent the ideology of a nation.…
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Cultural Appropriation vs Representation
Cultural representation is fast becoming the Topic of the Century. Everywhere we look, we see calls for representation, inclusivity and diversity in media. This is such an important movement in our history because it is making people of all cultures aware of the invisible price they pay for not participating in a global conversation. To…
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The Broken Line of Productivity
The videos are starting to come up, and the art work is building. I’m super excited and at the same time I feel like I should be producing more. I’ll get there, I always do, but it’s interesting how the productivity graph is never a nice, predictable line. Some of this must be from having…