Artist Spotlight #4: Mina Manzar
NYC-based illustrator advocates for issues in her own community through strategic use of bright colors.
Mina Manzar is a NYC-based, Karachi-raised digital and watercolor illustrator.
Her art is mainly rooted in her personal relationship to her home country, Pakistan. Heavily driven by issues regarding feminism, racism, and LGBT culture in Pakistan and around the world, she uses her Instagram page, @illu.mina.ti, to express her perspectives through her artworks.
Pixelated Revolution: How would you describe your work and aim as an artist?
Mina: When I started getting into art a lot, it was when I was maybe in middle school. It started with, you know, I love to read a lot, so I started with drawing the characters. I went to high school in Pakistan. I was there from 3rd to 11th grade, and we graduated in 11th grade. Then, as I got older and took proper art classes, my art teacher in my senior year, she knew that I would probably go study abroad and everything.
So she taught us to try to put your culture into your work a lot. Talk about your culture. Take some inspiration from Pakistani aesthetics, or Pakistani traditional painting styles or any sort of design styles. Put that in your work, it'll give you a bit of an edge because when you go abroad, there's not going to be as many people like you. For me, living over there, it didn't seem as exciting to make Pakistani art all the time because all the art is like that. But she made me understand. She was like, no, you should practice it because when you go abroad, you're spreading your culture to people who maybe haven't seen something like that before. So that's where that style started to come in, where a lot of my pieces revolve around my culture.
In general, I think coming here and being able to come out as queer, and finally be able to live like that, because obviously in Karachi, you can't really be open about it. So it's kind of incorporating those two things a lot more, where I think what's important to me in that style is all the colors. I feel like that reminds people of Pride, but also Pakistani aesthetics and truck art. Bright colors and art are big things. So that's why I think I have so many bright colors in all my pieces. And bright colors, even in college, have been something that teachers always define my work as like, oh, you have a lot of color palettes and different types of bright colors. I think those bold, graphic colors, that's where all of that comes from. Also, I do graphic design as my job. So more of the graphic aspects come into the illustration that way. I think that's the combination of how I would describe where my work comes from, and why it's that kind of style.
What issues in the world do you care about the most, and how do they reflect in your artworks?
I think a big thing from the beginning is that growing up, I saw a big problem in art that there is not enough representation of different skin colors. Obviously, being a painter, a big part of it is painting skin colors, and that's something through your art you can actually do.
But Pakistan being Pakistan, I love showing culture through my art, talking about my struggle with my culture, religion, and all that kind of stuff. Of course, talking about pride and everything like that. Then, when things like Black lives matter are happening, I felt like I had to put all my other art on hold, and talk more about things like that, and make pieces that are only talking and addressing that. And we should continue to do that, even if it's not trending right now. But when it's at its peak, I felt like that was the point where I had to shut everything else off, and it had to be about that.
But mixing that in with Black lives matter, all these types of movements that happen like this for minority groups, a big thing is that I always want to represent different skin colors in my art. That's very specifically related to how I make art. So that's kind of how I show a lot of things without even having to say anything, just showing in the art different skin colors, different types of ethnicities, has always been really important to me. Because then, people will see it and they'll feel represented. Not that I have some huge following or whatever, but even just the kids from Pakistan who might follow me, or kids over here from different ethnicities that might follow me, will feel at least they're seeing it somewhere, and it's happening a lot more for sure.
Obviously there's so many artists who do that. But, for me, it was always very important to use my art in that way, where there are lots of different types of people and there's diversity. And I want to show that.
What do you think Instagram brings to the table that other social media outlets don’t necessarily have?
First of all, the audience you can get on Instagram. For me, Twitter, I never used it really. I don't know why, I guess it wasn't a big thing growing up for me in Pakistan. But Pakistanis now use it a lot more. But when I was growing up, it wasn't really a thing. So I guess I never got into it much, but a lot of people do use Twitter to post art, but there's also word limits and things like that. People do threads now, and that's becoming a thing now, but Instagram always had the thing where you could write a caption. And I talk so much about my work, so that was one big thing, being able to write a caption where if it's this piece that you really want to talk about something important, you can write that all in there because they do say pictures are worth a thousand words. But I honestly believe that writing is really a powerful thing as well. And I love writing, so I feel like Instagram has that option.
Facebook has all these options to do these types of things, but it's not the right audience at all. Especially, for me, it's all my old Pakistani family, so it's not going to blow up there because nobody's gonna like it, so it doesn't work. I used Tumblr a lot as a kid, but that was as a kid. And when I really first started doing art, I would post drawings of books that I read, and fan art, and that's how I got into it. I had a couple of thousand followers on Tumblr when I was a kid. But again, it wasn't so much politically driven. It was just me starting out. And I feel like now with stuff like that, Tumblr is dying out of it.
And I also feel people on that platform, when I stopped using it, it was because people got very sensitive about things, and didn't go about these social issues the right way. Sensitive in the sense of that they made it into personal arguments, and I saw things like that happening rather than actually addressing any real social issues and wanting to talk about them in a mature way.
I just feel like Instagram at least has your friends first. And then, when they share things and other people start to see them, more audience comes. I just feel like it has the right audience for me, and the right kind of tools with writing the caption. Stories are big for me. Snapchat has stories, but nobody that I know even uses Snapchat anymore. Stories help you spread all of that kind of information. I just feel like it has all the right tools and the right audience for me to be able to use it that way.
And also, nobody has to interact with it if they don't want to. On Instagram, you can talk about it to people who actually want to have a healthy conversation. And if they don't, if they're going to be horrible or weird about it, and not want to have a healthy conversation about something, you don't have to enter it.
Do you have any favorite activist-minded artists on Instagram?
Yeah, there are quite a few. I can't think of them off the top of my head. There's so many Pakistani artists that I follow, and these are the ones that post the kinds of things that I do. I'll actually look up their names properly and send you them.
There's one artist that posts a lot of, like this one isn't specifically Pakistani, but he is Arabic and Muslim [Mina later shares with Pixelated Revolution that she is referring to @artqueerhabibi.] So it kind of comes from this similar thing. And he's queer as well. He posts so much beautiful art about queer men, queer women, even, but within the Muslim community. We don't see that, we don't see Muslims out in the open, but he makes art of it as if it's normal. So it's kind of interesting to see, that kind of reality, but he's making art of it.
I follow a lot of artists that bring my culture, but also queer culture in together. And there are a lot of cool artists that came up when everybody was posting a lot of different infographics during Black lives matter. I followed these really cool illustrators who make these amazing posters for Black lives matter. I can send you those as well too.
Mina’s list of favorite Instagram artists:
Do you have any specific artistic inspiration, and how do they show up in your work?
Definitely the first thing I think of is that music is big for me. So every time I make a new piece, I put up a song with it, with the lyrics [on Instagram] because that's the song that inspired it. And that's a song that I thought of while making it, or I was listening to the most. So that's the first and foremost thing. Sometimes I'll listen to a song, and I'll have an idea, but it's not always the minute you have the idea, you just make that. There's a process that comes after that. I have the idea, I go through a couple of ways of trying out the idea of what looks best. Then, obviously, the technicalities of composition, and the colors, and how to draw it. But music is one thing that always starts it.
And then, in general, being inspired by other artists that I see a lot. Inspired by other work that I see, and be like, well, this is an interesting concept that they thought of. What is something similar that I can think of that looks like that? Art obviously inspires art. But, for me, music inspires me big time.
What impression or impact would you hope your work leaves its audience?
I think that that's a big one because one thing that I always appreciate is that there are these young kids all over, from Karachi, from other places in Pakistan, even in India, who I get messages from a lot. A lot of them, they're telling me about how they're queer, and they can't come out there and dangerous situations. And that's such a common story from that culture, but that's something that always makes me happy to read because I wish that I had that when I was younger. I didn't see anyone from my own culture doing anything like this in the open at least, because it's only recently started that people are more open about it. I'm also not in the country. Most of the time I only go in the summer. So I am more safe to be able to do all of this. It just makes me so happy to know that at least somebody doesn't feel alone because of seeing this. I think that's the impact I would want to have, is that these kids can know that they're not alone. They're not freaks or wrong for any of this. They're just in the wrong situation. They're just in the wrong place, that's all. So if anybody could feel better just by seeing my art, and not feel like a freak and not feel as alone, that's a big thing for me.
Do you have a favorite art piece that you created?
I think the one that I liked a lot, I made for my senior year. I made it for the senior portfolio. That's the one where it's the two girls at Pride, and one's holding the India flag, and one's holding the Pakistani flag instead of pride flags. I actually made that piece at a time where India and Pakistan were about to go on some stupid war for some stupid thing. And they've had high tensions since forever. There was so much tension during that summer because someone had attacked somebody, then they attacked back, and they were literally on the brink of war. It got deflated, and it went down and never happened. Thank God. But while that was happening, it was happening during Pride as well. I just felt like this is so stupid. All my friends at college that I've made were all Indian. We are sister countries who speak the same language. We have the same culture, we're all the same. It's just the government telling us we should hate each other. So we do. So, you know, it's stupid.
And I just felt like this is also dumb. Right now, there's a girl that I've been talking to and seeing, and she's Indian as well. I'm Pakistani. You know what I mean? So that piece, just to me, felt like it encompassed everything in that month that was just frustrating me so much where there's so much politics against gay people in both those countries.
It just felt like I was almost kind of trying to poke fun at people, and make that piece for anybody who would get angry at that. But, at the same time, make people who would be most affected by these types of negative impacts, make them feel better by seeing a piece like that. So that was definitely one of my favorite ones.
What do you think is your responsibility as a digital artist in the age of social media?
I wouldn't try and push my perspective on every social media artist. But, for me personally, I feel like I do have a responsibility to not make a post if I'm ignorant about something. If I'm going to do something, I have to be educated. For example, that's why the posts that I made for BLM was mainly addressing the South Asian community, and how we have anti-Blackness in our community. How we have microaggressions in our community, and how to stop those. That is something I can talk about because that's my community, and I'm trying to call them out.
But I'm not going to go out and make huge posts about actual experiences of Black people and what they've been through, because I don't know that. I would ask if I was ever going to do something. I would do something like what you're doing, where I would maybe interview someone, and shine light on them and their story. But I think that's number one, a big thing is never try to step on other people's toes in that way. It's good to obviously share posts of people, that's something that you should be doing in that sense. It's always good to spread those stories.
I'm not trying to discourage people from wanting to talk about the issues, but you can't be the main voice in issues that aren't your experience. I feel like that's a big thing. So that's something I want to be very responsible about. I think that it's a big part if you're using your platform for activism or anything like that, you want to make sure you're representing it the right way, and you're representing the right stories from the right voices who've experienced those things. Use your own experience to then spread that in your community, or people that you reach out to. People that are from your experience. I feel like that should be your main focus, and the rest can be shining light on other people to talk about certain things.
What do you think of the current relationship between social media, art, and activism, and how it’s going to progress in the future?
I think that one thing that is important to remember is if you're using social media for activism, it has to go hand in hand with actual actions. In that case, it is performative. So I feel like it's always hand in hand, and social media should be seen more as a tool to get the message and help other people, like a call to action. That's what social media should be used as more of. I think that this idea of it being performative is coming from a bitter place for a lot of people, and a true place for a lot of people. It depends on what perspective they're talking from.
I feel like when it's true is for people who are actually being oppressed and going through these things, and they just see someone post something on social media to relieve themselves of like, oh, I said it. I did it. That is when it's performed and it's not helping anybody. In that case, we should keep the conversation on how much of social media is just performative, and where we need to call up people to do more and take more action. It doesn't even have to be action like you donated $1 million to someplace. It's an action in your day to day life. Are you calling people out? Are you calling yourself out where you're doing microaggressions?
On the other hand, there are some people that I have seen, especially during this time in 2020, there's been so many things going on. I've seen a lot of people, rather than use their platforms to talk about something or bring awareness, they've only used their platforms during this time to talk about performative activism. To me, when the only thing you're touching upon is talking about performative activism, and that's why you're not going to participate, that just makes it even more performative. It's such a complicated situation, but I totally understand the performative thing, and why people who are experiencing the actual aggressions would be very frustrated by people performing for real.
Do you have any ongoing upcoming projects you'd like to share?
There are a couple. There are a few that are very much about my relationship with culture, and growing up in certain traditions, especially religion. I'm very much not religious in that sense, not that I have any problem with people who are, but from where I grew up, a lot of people use it for oppression. The post is very much about not just religion, but how people kind of accused me of having a political existence, and making everything political when really I'm not. It's just that my existence is politicized by everyone around me. So I don't have a choice, to sink or swim. So I become political to swim. You know, I'm not going to sink. The post is very much about that. Then, a few others which are more fun and lighthearted, or just a few cute gay posts, which I have a few of those too.
Do you have any activist-related resources, events, or initiatives we should know about?
There's one magazine, Mashion Pakistan. It's a magazine in Pakistan, which is actually very much centered around female empowerment, which is really cool. They actually shared my art, which I thought was very interesting because my art is very queer. And they shared a piece about my BLM piece. Without really saying it, they're like hinting at what my art is, and they're supporting it still. So I thought that was really interesting. We need that in Pakistan, we need more female empowerment and things like that.
Any parting thoughts?
No, I think that you definitely touched up on all the topics. I think that this is really cool. You're doing this cause it's like an important topic to be talked about. And I think art is still powerful and we need to give it that power. And I feel like this is a really good way to encourage that kind of use of our art in that way.
To support Mina, you can follow her on Instagram, and check out her portfolio website.
Pixelated Revolution is a bi-weekly newsletter that features the graphic designers and illustrators of color behind some of the most engaging and viral activist-driven graphics on social media that touches upon issues of systemic oppression, race, gender, and sexuality politics.
The newsletter is created and edited by Margaret Guzman, an arts and culture journalist and documentary filmmaker based in New York City.
For activist-minded artists who want to be featured, we would love to interview you. Just email me at mmg591@nyu.edu
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