I have lived in Pakistan for seventeen years and as much as I love the culture and feel at home here, I still feel like a foreigner. I grew up in a typical Australian family in Northern NSW where the…
May 09th 2026 saw the opening of In Minor Keys, the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by the (late) Koyo Kouoh. Once again, included in the roster of nations represented at the biennale, is a…
The lake is already awake when the artists arrive. Houseboats rock gently, fastened more by habit than rope. Nets dry in uneven arcs along their wooden spines. Children lean over the water’s edge, watching reflections rupture and reform. For five…
The cultural and economic value of textile craft micro-enterprises is often visible in present-day urban centres, projects led by non-profits, and consumerist practices in Pakistan. Reading through definitions of textile craft7, one comes across descriptions referring to activities engaged with…
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 bujhki19, coverlets, and posh20, 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 Megna27 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. 46 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…