17th January 2022]: Staying true to their tradition of bringing new and innovative ideas to the game of cricket, PSL’s most successful franchise and winner of season 1 and 3 of the competition, Islamabad United, proudly present the world’s first cricket x art collaboration in partnership with one of Paki-stan’s most iconic artists, Imran Qureshi.
Under the project, AANideasLAB: IQ X IU, art-ist Imran Qureshi interacted with the Islamabad United players, conducting a visual art project, spread over several weeks. This collaboration aims to celebrate sport and art, two of the most universal languages we have today, bringing art to the Paki-stani public through their love for the game of cricket.
“Since its inception, Islamabad United has been focused on bringing innovation to the PSL and one of our missions has been to use the huge reach of cricket in introducing socially positive causes to a wider audience. I am especially enthused about this idea as it combines two of our passions – cricket and art – together, something not done before any-where in the world. I have been thinking about this idea for a few years but Covid delayed its execution until this year. The project will help in mainstream-ing visual and other arts to cricket fans in Pakistan as well as to a global audience. I am grateful to Im-ran Qureshi for accepting such a challenge as its inaugural artist and to the Islamabad United players who have shown flexibility for this totally new ex-perience. Like all of you, I am keenly looking for-ward to seeing what creative forms this project takes” said Ali Naqvi, owner of Islamabad United.
“When Ali invited me to make a proposal for this project, it immediately clicked. I have always wanted art to be shared as widely as possible. Both arts and sports enable us to express ourselves physi-cally, emotionally and even intellectually, allowing us to connect and communicate with each other around the world, crossing borders, cultures, lan-guages and generations. If we blend these two lan-guages into one, I believe we could create a power-ful new vehicle and platform that could reach, and connect with, an even bigger audience.—PR
