An art museum can serve as a powerful monument, a place where histories can be revisited, reclaimed, and given a new voice. The oldest museums in our country are archaeological in nature, framed by perspectives constructed by outsiders. The narratives…
At midnight I stood looking at the sky, feeling the excitement of the birth of a new year through the lens of my 10-year-old granddaughter. The fireworks were spectacular, the sound of firing deafening, and the pervasive smell of gunpowder…
Stories are always powerful, they are fragments of the self that we give wings to. They can be born as art, musical scores, film, poem or performance, as an outpouring of all that has gestated, sometimes it means peeling of…
In a recent interview on Al Jazeera, Shahidul Alam, the eminent photographer, activist, and founder of Dirk Picture Library (Dhaka)— while speaking on world conflicts— shared that people don’t learn from history because the official history, in most cases, is…
The arrival of Freedom Boat— flying maritime flags specially created by artists Nicole Eisenman and Rosalind Nashashibi with artists, curators, filmmakers and writers as passengers— docked near Giardini, and then engaged all those present with reading in support of Palestine. Not only was…
The boundary wall of Press Club was covered with larger-than-life portraits of iconic women of Pakistan (2016). This gesture of acknowledgement commissioned by the I Am Karachi campaign was painted by truck artists from the urban art collective, Phool Pati.…
The controversy that began with Documenta 15 has become much worse during the planning of Documenta 16 and now threatens the very life of this Kassel based, prestigious art forum. I remember my first Documenta, it was truly impressive with…
The news of Tariq Javed’s passing away was sudden and took many of us back to memories of him as a painter and ceramist, and above all as a magnanimous spirit who brought people together and helped the nascent careers…
Steadily Public Art is attracting artists and communities that understand the importance of inclusivity and the need for larger dialogues through art. Getting traction on all continents it has proven itself to be a space-making practice that unites, amplifies and…
We deserve a better death. Our bodies are disfigured and twisted, embroidered with bullets and shrapnel. - Musab Abo Toha, from his collection ‘Save Gaza’. Like a puzzle, each verse of this poem fits together to tell the brutal history…