Ahmed Umer Farooqi

Rule, Rules, Ruled

Rules are instruments of power. They shape what can be said, recorded and recognised through ordinary structures: lines to write within, forms to complete, desks to sit behind and spaces in which to wait.  

This installation considers how bureaucracy becomes part of everyday life through materials and environments that are easy to overlook. It asks who creates the systems that define what is visible, official or legitimate and whose labour, language and compliance keep those systems in place. These works consider the colonial histories within these systems and what becomes possible when their structures are exposed.