Many questions about Karachi were left unanswered as I grew up between erasure and nostalgia in this city. The colonial built heritage with its linear history echoed the imperialist narrative which for decades became the only truth we knew. It…
As a keen observer of art history and the ruptures created by colonization, I have found artisanal practices as an important part of the cultural continuum that exists independent of Eurocentric art history. The assimilation of influences embedded in crafts…
It’s the spatial conundrums in pioneer modernist Shakir Ali’s canvases that have always intrigued me. The decluttering of objects helps you focus on the infinite void and the tension between space and levitating objects, subverting all notions of gravity to…
Art today can be best described as a mutating organism that fed by imagination expands into new directions and disciplines. The departure from the traditional forms has led to the big question, is all we see in exhibitions art? But…
In the last decade Sheherezade Alam (1948 – 2022) was like a clay sufi, using mitti as a lens to talk about life and living. To her the clay welded the past to the present in a vast timeless embrace…
While clearing space on my laptop I came across images of Kathmandu and with them came memories of this city that I was introduced to via art. Ten years ago I was invited to The Kathmandu Art Festival which offered…
As I stood within the Summer Palace (Lahore), a stunning visual connection began to emerge between the arabesque of the fading Mughal frescos and contemporary calligraphy on display— this aesthetic arc effortlessly spanned over half a millennium. The site of…
The countries from the Asia- Pacific Region that participated in the recent online UNESCO Regional Consultation Mondiacult 2022 were mostly born in the last eighty years. These relatively young nations, many independent after centuries of colonialism, have been reclaiming their…
A question I have often asked myself: what made Rabia Zuberi, a young woman in the 1960s, commit all her energies to building an art institution? To undertake such an ambitious project thereby leaving her no time to raise a…
Walking through the pavilions at EXPO 22, one could see many carefully selected layers of identity: history, innovation, national resources and culture; all woven into a visitor experience that spoke of both a nation’s self- perception and the image it…