When the Crow Caws: Performance and the Relational Politics of Hospitality in Hurmat Ain and Rabbya Naseer’s Art Practice

Abstract:This article examines the complex meditation on domestic environments as relational spaces in Hurmat Ain and Rabbya Naseer’s solo and collaborative art practices. Often rooted in physical sites and material elements of domesticity—from live performances in bedrooms and kitchens to installations with textiles and food—their works orchestrate intimate situations where the meeting of performer and spectator doubles as an encounter between visitor and inhabitant, citizen and foreigner, guest and host. In doing so, the artists reveal how practices of hospitality—the everyday rituals through which ‘home’ is enacted and extended to others—serve to uphold cultural, patriarchal, and nationalist values, while simultaneously opening up space for their transformation.