“My grandfather says that’s what books are for,” Ashoke said, using the opportunity to open the volume in his hand. “To travel without moving an inch.” Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake1 The two-thousand-year-old remarkable tradition of books in South Asia…
Stuff. Everywhere the eye goes, there is a plethora of ‘stuff’. Gleaming and lucratively packaged in mammoth shopping malls, hoarded up in our home-stores and attics, or trashed on our streets, all types of stuff is ubiquitous now. We are…
I was reading Robert Louis Stevenson a few nights ago. His poem Requiem, reads: “This be the verse you grave for me Here he lies where he long'd to be Home is the sailor, home from sea And the hunter home from the hill”.1 Ruby Chishti’s works…
Manuscript making and illumination in the Indian Mughal courts has been a well-recognized high-art form in South Asia between the fifteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Emperors, such as Akbar (b.1542-1605) and Shah Jahan (b.1592-1666), frequently posed on terraces of their…
I struggle to find the right distance, The in-between space Neither too close nor too far away will she be safe A dwelling will be located for her By her And if they still dress her up as them She…
Many things about AAN Gandhara Art Space’s recent exhibition titled Re-examine/ Retrace prompt our admiration. Brainchild of artists and curators Adeel Uz Zafar and R.M Naeem (of Studio R.M), the show centralizes printmaking techniques including woodcut, relief, and line etching…
Microcosm 4 is the most recent in a series of exhibitions held previously between 2017-2019 and curated by artist-curator Adeel Uz Zafar at AAN Gandhara Art Space in Karachi. This iteration considers artworks by thirteen1 emerging Pakistani contemporary artists who…