Last year, I visited ‘The Haveli Museum’ in Karachi, where the exhibition The Coat of Many Colours displayed textile-based crafts from Sindh. These objects included bujhki1, coverlets, and posh2, among several others. Observing these items stirred a quiet nostalgia for…
This essay is based on an interview between the author and Karachi-born, Brooklyn-based artist Hiba Schahbaz. Hiba Schahbaz’s paintings look autobiographical; self-portraiture is a recurring theme representing her unknown and unresolved cognitive musings. However, the contexts shift visually between the…
Emerging from the fertile Ganges plains, where the river Megna9 flowed, was a textile celebrated for its ethereal qualities. As light as the wind, and clear as the dew, the Indian Muslins, or ‘malmal’, were a delicate, sheer handwoven cotton…
Folktales are not born of chance. “Folktale” has always been an umbrella term encapsulating the whole range of traditional oral narratives. 28 The resilient nature of oral storytelling reflects an interplay of linguistic and social interactions, historical transformations, and the…
Five years before Waheeda Baloch stood on Bagh Ibne Qasim’s Katrak Band Stand as curator of the Fourth Karachi Biennale (KB24)—with the sun setting before her, and the biennale beginning¾ she was a participating artist at the same location, for…
My first article on the subject published in December 2021 by The Karachi Collective (TKC) garnered significant interest from art collectors, gallery owners, foundations, and auction houses - some with great appreciation and others with discomfort of being called out…
If you mark truth on a timeline, who chooses the starting point? Since October 2023, newsrooms and academic campuses particularly in the West, have been accused of taking sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict. “I don’t think it’s the ‘Israel-Gaza war.’…
Being at the coast is a magical experience that encapsulates the purest form of serenity. The very essence of tranquility permeates the air. The intimate saltiness that lingers once you arrive at the water’s edge seems to dance around you.…
Commissioned and published in Garland Magazine, March 2022 Issue, Australia and subsequently presented at the Karachi Biennial’s Public Forum later that year, The Karachi Collective publishes Abdullah M. I. Syed’s On joining the NFT art mania: Creative liberation or lotacracy…
The Khoj Design Research Residency, was designed as a response to a dearth of research in design academia in Pakistan. While the field of fine art has established research driven art practice, the field of design lags far behind. Faculty…