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 craft4, 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 bujhki16, coverlets, and posh17, 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 Megna24 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. 43 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.…