People, cultures and ideas have constantly reshaped our understanding of the world. Their creative impulse, cultural and intellectual legacy remains inextricably tied to, and visible in our lived experiences, environments and even urban spaces. Cities may be seen as artificial constructs, yet they have facilitated the coexistence of vast populations and fostered rapid innovation. Indeed, the quicker many cities expand, the more they are compelled to contemplate what it truly means to be “modern”, be it through technology, survival, hygiene, self-sufficiency and sustainability. 1
Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, poor urban planning, urban sprawl, conflict-driven migration, and rural-to-urban migration patterns are pushing cities to the brink. Their inhabitants are grappling to devise solutions that adequately match the monumental challenges now defining the Anthropocene on a broader scale.2 Bursting at the seams, many cities are now becoming densely packed cesspools teeming with inequities, developmental issues, class divisions and access to basic human needs such as sanitation, electricity, food, shelter. This discourse intersects with growing concerns that many cities in post-colonial nations in particular are more vulnerable to this lack of social justice.3 Overwhelmed by infrastructure challenges, there is a growing fear that cities in developing countries are evolving into unwieldy conglomerates that serve primarily as consumption hubs, merely emitting pollutants while fostering decay and deprivation. Nonetheless, flawed urban theories and Eurocentric developmental models rooted in imperial frameworks, used as metrics of “success” and “failure,” have contributed significantly to steering this trajectory both in narrative and in practice. 4 5 Their one-size-fits-all approach has disregarded the contribution of migration, vernacular histories, identity as constituents that can reveal a more complex representation of cities in the Global South that goes beyond “poverty porn” and labelling developing nations efforts’ as being merely representative of failure in governance and policy.
Microhistories and the urban fabric of the city itself for example can offer a more nuanced reading of particularities that can help one imagine cities in non-western parts of the world as being much more complex organisms that have layered histories and a different understanding of modernity inextricably linked to the development of indigenous knowledge systems as well as tangible and intangible heritage. In these cities, worlds within worlds operate within self-defined holistic networks of ecologies; they not only enliven urban spaces but can also serve as catalysts for resilience and reclamation as strategic approaches. Can such urban spaces, with their own legacy and vibrant energy, reinvigorate the present? Can research-based art practices conceptualize this multi-faceted interaction as an experience? In asking these questions about the relevance of contemporary art practice, ecology and everyday life become invariably imbricated with environmental issues- issues that ensure meaningful dialogue with living spaces rather than basking in nostalgia or waxing eloquently about the beauty of aesthetic decay.
Perhaps that is why the ancestral home Mehta Mansion, located just a few kilometers from the historic Walled City of Lahore, serves as such a compelling backdrop for the Group Show titled Tomorrow Isn’t Promised. The mansion was built in the 1930s by an ambitious young government officer who, like most Indians of his era, had grown up in the Walled City of Lahore. Having returned from England a transformed man, Amolak Ram Mehta was eager to embrace a more modern, westernized lifestyle. He was working in the Public Health Department when he constructed his dream home in an upscale part of Lahore on Temple Road. Many of his extended family and relatives soon followed, building their own houses in the neighborhood— a testament to which is the lane’s enduring name, Mehta Street. Amolak Ram Mehta’s story embodies the larger aspirations of a new class of locals at the time who were in the process of consolidating and crafting a new vision of modernity when the partition of India took place. Forced to migrate, the home was reclaimed by a Muslim family from Panipat who had been equally reluctant to leave their land. Badar Hasan Begum, along with her daughters and extended family, not only settled in Mehta Mansion but also played a pivotal role in shaping their new nation-state. One of her daughters established an industrial home where refugee girls could earn an income through their crafts, while another daughter engaged with the National Guard and Girl Guides, eventually becoming a political worker. Furthermore, 11 Temple Road served as a hub for philanthropic and charitable activities, rehabilitating young orphan girls and covering all expenses for their marriages, courtesy of the Hasan family. Many displaced refugees, fleeing the upheaval of Partition, found temporary shelter at the mansion as they awaited relocation to their new homes. 6
The mansion with its promise of modern cultural practices intertwined with the traditions and lifestyle of the Walled City, alongside the narratives of migration and resettlement in emerging nation-states creates a crucible that raises profound questions on a macro level: which narratives hold significance, and how do they shape the identity of the city? For both families the experiences and movement across cultural spaces, cities and borders is charged with meaning; they responded to their cultural and historical zeitgeist. Amolak Ram’s story, in particular, transcends the conventional duality of the city narrative that assumes most natives lived in the congested Walled City, isolated by colonizers who exerted their authority through town planning and surveillance. Rather than merely adhering to the tidy spatial divisions of colonizer and colonized, it may be more illuminating to explore the desires that fueled indigenous modernities both before and after Partition, viewing them through the lives and experiences of countless individuals like Badar Begums and Amolak Rams who remain nameless. What were the casualties in this relentless pursuit of progress toward first-world aspirations, and how did indigenous knowledge systems grapple with the upheavals of the time, even as the dissonances and cracks in modernist, utopian visions began to emerge?
The group of artists who have showcased their work at 11 Temple Road find themselves navigating the complexities of such dilemmas in the present day— they take stock of the losses and gains viewed through the lens of ecologies in urban metropolises. Their artistic practices may be diverse and contemporary, yet they draw on personal experiences, heritage, indigenous knowledge and memory to imbue their works with depth and meaning. Some of their art and design practices reflect on trees, flora, water, land and soil as entities that have quietly witnessed the unfolding of each epoch, yet the Anthropocene, in particular, has proven brutally unforgiving. Perhaps this is the caveat: our relationship with nature has consistently intersected with a complex matrix of ideas. In the context of climate change, rampant consumption, and pressing socio-cultural realities that threaten environmental justice and drive migration, how do we perceive modernity today? This question resonates throughout the exhibition. The exhibiting artists in Tomorrow isn’t Promised include Affan Baghpati, Ameer Hamza, Bharati Lalwani, Nicolas Roth, Marjan Baniasadi, Maryam Baniasadi, Nabiha Khan, Rahma Shahid Karim, Saba Qizilbash, Shireen Pasha, Sidra Khwaja, Talha Shams and Zeb Bilal. The works are examined according to their themes and content rather than their spatial arrangement within the gallery. Sensory experiences play a vital role in several of the exhibited pieces. In particular, a collaborative work by Bharati Lalwani and Nicolas Roth, titled Bagh-e-Hind, stands out for its innovative use of Mughal period South Asian paintings to create olfactory scent-scapes. As one enters the mansion, scents are artfully displayed alongside the paintings in the initial space, inviting a unique sensory experience. Their website showcases7 research that explores the relationship between material culture, sensory experience and art. Their chapter titled Smoke is exhibited in this exhibition and it represents this as a third iteration in a physical space. Nicolas Roth is a horticulturist and scholar of Early Modern South Asia, (Cambridge, USA) and Bharati Lalwani is an art critic and perfumer based in Pune, India. They launched their research in 2021 culminating in exhibitions that they refer to as “chapters.” Their first chapter was exhibited at Institute of Art & Olfaction in Los Angeles in 2022 followed by the Narcissus chapter in 202 in the Queer Arts Festival in Kolkata. In 2024 Museum Rietberg hosted an exhibition titled Ragamala – Pictures for All Senses which featured fifty Indian miniature paintings from the Ragamala genre. Roth and Lalwani contributed by positing the musical paintings and fragrances.
Their chapter, featured in Tomorrow Isn’t Promised, is distinctive for its display of miniature Mughal paintings placed next to elaborate family heirlooms belonging to curator Fatma Shah. These include ornate perfume containers that highlight the significance of scent in both courtly settings and garden scenes. Drawing inspiration from both natural and man-made forms, the use of these containers arose from Shah’s online discussions with the curators, offering a contemplative reflection on the interplay between the paintings and their accompanying objects.
The containers themselves are whimsical and imaginative, eliciting both pleasure and recalling a time of delicate refinement. More than just artefacts they appear to have time travelled from early 19th century Urdu novels set in an era that was suffused with emphasis on sophisticated etiquette and elaborate, almost elegiac praise for the minutest detail. Shah’s stories about each bottle are replete with connections to landscape, familial ties, cultural practice and an etiquette that fostered generational bonding as well as tradition. In one anecdote she recounts how her mother’s maternal grandfather contributed to his daughters’ dowries by visiting and sourcing these bottles during his visits to Srinagar in Kashmir. Perhaps that would explain the distinct shape and form of a boat that is featured in the selection of containers. Srinagar, now the capital of Indian Kashmir is home to several lakes namely Dal Lake, Nigeen Lake, Anchar Lake, Wular Lake, and Manasbal Lake.8 Houseboats are a common feature that still dot the scenic environment at these lakes. The bottle itself is carefully nestled in a metal armature shaped like a boat with flags flying on the stem and bow. To make it more ceremonial the armature and bottle are placed on a pedestal shaped like a boat; scrolls of leaves and buds cover every inch of the surface and appear to be carved/incised deeply into the surface. Based on its connection to water and territory, on a broader scale the boat-shaped container transforms into a memory object that mediates between various idylls; connection to land and connection to identity.
One particular bottle container that Shah describes is beautifully wrought from metal, artfully positioned on a raised, three-pronged platform and shaped like a maple leaf. Its vines gracefully curl around the bottle, culminating in sculpted flowers with protruding buds. Shah recalls how her mother would soak cotton buds in rose water and insert them into the center of the metallic “bud.” This container was specifically used during milads9, all-female gatherings held in the privacy of homes to honor and commemorate the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).10
Zeb Bilal and Nabiha Khan delve into the realm of scent in their installation, Chillum e Bakhoor, which stands tall in the courtyard at the back of the mansion. This work explores the unique structure and components of a South Asian chillum11, reimagined as a series of tactile, sculptural forms. With randomly stacked tobacco bowls that fan out or rise like totemic poles, their silhouettes eclipse even the evening sky. The imposing presence and aroma of the installation not only reenacts the chillum’s role as a cultural symbol marked by its spicy scent but also as a transformative force, providing smoke for the hookah pipe. The bowl can emanate and establish bonds of camaraderie as much as it can sow and coerce disorder. It is a double-edged sword.
Maryam Bani Asadi explores the representation of nature in environments stripped of context, presenting what can be seen as botanical observations. In some instances, she erases and appropriates elements from urban settings, rendering them devoid of meaning. This may be how binaries begin to emerge as contested in her works. Amidst the starkness of blank paper, Asadi’s portrayal of what is considered “natural” appears to float soundlessly as a seemingly prosaic composition—until one begins to perceive the dissonance within the harmony of leaves that emerge haphazardly along a sinuously snaking tree branch, or how the tidy brick pattern establishes an “order” around the planted palm trees.
The artifice of man in relation to the wisdom of nature is also explored in an outdoor installation titled The Listening Tree by Nabiha Khan and Zeb Bilal. Could nature be envisaged as a sentient being much like Gaia the ancient Greek Goddess of Earth? In ancient Egypt small statuettes were used to house the soul that would continue to live on after death. In Japan, stone statues called Jizo12 and piles of stones guard garden paths and trails that protect the spirit of deceased children. This reversion to that belief underscores its absence today; man and nature have not merely fallen out of harmony but have severed their own intrinsic connection. The ecological fallout has left behind ruins and industrial debris.
Perhaps that is why Khan and Bilal have chosen to display a miniature version of the banyan tree in tin as a sort of post-industrial guardian, a Tree of Life that has been resurrected from the belly of the best itself, so to speak. It is deliberately placed in close proximity to the actual banyan tree that occupies space with its massive expanse in the front courtyard. A hallmark of The Listening Tree is its materiality and the sharp angularities of its body. The metallic ribbons of its structure twist, trail and travel to intertwine with the roots of the actual banyan tree, affirming its unlikely relationship. From a distance it resembles a guardian spirit or specter shimmering as if it is a divine entity emitting primordial light. On closer observation the hammered surfaces attest to its imperfections borne out of violence. Khan’s question mentioned at the end of her statement is an apt summation of the conflict: “…who will prevail, Man or Nature?”
Sidra Khwaja and Saba Qizilbash both take up post-colonial conflicts over land and territory in the region as the centrifugal force that has been instrumental in shaping the destinies of communities and cultures that have doggedly continued to live, move and trade for generations regardless of man-made borders.
Saba Qizilbash has garnered acclaim for the grandeur and scale of her graphite panoramas. Her drawings possess a majesty that belies the seemingly effortless manner in which individual segments are collaged and layered—like artful vignettes of landscapes that vary in scale and infrastructure. These compositions function much like the construction of history itself—compressed and reshaped into seamless, polished narratives through Qizilbash’s impeccable skill and compelling visual storytelling. Rooted in an academic approach, she meticulously studies travel histories, routes and accounts to uncover residues of marginalized histories that resist neat categorization. For this particular exhibition, Qizilbash reflects on the route from Skardu to Kargil, paying special attention to the ironic fate of the inhabitants of a village called Hunderman Brooq, who find themselves repeatedly divided by shifting borders and uncertain conflicts every few years.
Sidra Khwaja engages with the ongoing conflict in Kashmir, drawing inspiration from the colonial map shawls created for the 1878 Paris Exhibition to craft a documentary and an embroidered shawl that mourn the politics of land and borders in Longing for Paradise: A Map Shawl of Kashmir. The shawl has been handcrafted over a span of five months by Liaqat Dar, a Kashmiri freedom fighter-turned-artisan who narrates his memories, thoughts and autobiography in the documentary titled Longing for Paradise, which is directed by Zafeer Butt and produced by Sidra Khwaja. The shawl itself is displayed on a flat table allowing the audience to freely move around it while the video plays on an LED screen above the fire place. A rubbing of the actual “design” of the shawl has been displayed on a tracing sheet in close proximity to both. Their curation and placement create a dialogue between all three works where the maker and the object, the subaltern and their power struggles enunciate and communicate through different mediums and performative acts. The shawl depicts the pre-Partition map of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Line of Control between India and Pakistan and the Line of Actual Control between India and China. Although the shawl is meticulously embroidered with fine needlework, its beauty is at odds with the visual vocabulary of the map itself. Barbed wire, guns, uniforms, tanks and droplets of blood drench the cartography of the map. These symbols appear to be at odds with the famous couplet of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan who compared Kashmir to an earthly Paradise.
Khwaja also acknowledges the cultural heritage and traditional practices of Kashmir through a video titled Khatamband- The Game (2022). It depicts the shifting pieces used in the Kashmiri craft of geometric ceiling finishing. The pieces have been deliberately deconstructed through the molding and casting process. The motifs are shown being moved and shuffled about like pieces of a puzzle, or a game, allowing for a more nuanced meanings that draw parallels with manipulation, silence and control regarding narratives surrounding the Kashmir conflict.
Whether it was the Timurids13, Mongols14 or the Sikhs15, Lahore has endured many invasions and perhaps Ameer Hamza tries to capture and tabulate some fragments of these remnants of battlefields we will never know of. Hamza references Karbala and even Palestine, but limiting the works to their geographical or political dimension omits the broader discourse about the aesthetics of decay and display.
Parts of armor and weaponry are rendered to appear as if they have been unearthed from archaeological digs, their surfaces aged by time and corrosion—much like the peeling paint on the walls of the ancestral home where this body of work is displayed. Perhaps that is what sparks intrigue: the paradoxical idea that some remnants of history remain surprisingly enduring, while life itself is transient, a juxtaposition that can be unsettling. Some paintings are composed to resemble museological displays or catalogue entries, such as in Arsenal, prompting questions about whether these artifacts were appropriated as military trophies, archived, or buried with the deceased. The contentious issues surrounding their acquisition raise further questions about their form and meaning. When viewed from a distance, these images transform into enigmatic pictographic scripts—forms of writing that reveal much about the societies they represent. With this, the works carry a moral weight: what is the relationship between the deceased owners and those who acquired their possessions? The burden of history and the sorrow of sacrifice are also conveyed through scale. An enormous sword, worn by use or weathered by time, is painted on a scroll filled with sprawling calligraphic script in the background. It is solemnly displayed—like an object laid out with sacramental significance—in a pristine case reserved for manuscripts and precious artifacts. Titled Shikasta, after the font style of the calligraphy, the sword becomes a metaphor for mourning—an elegy against violence and loss. This curatorial choice and display for this work may lend it a pretentious air of authority but that is precisely the point: who gets to consecrate history in this way and narrate the story of victory or defeat? Does it account for the silences? how have records of invasions and massacres within cities been archived and memorialized?
Affan Baghpati uses vintage objects with regional histories and combines them to create sculptures that comment on the relationship between material culture and the baggage— both literal and metaphorical— of post-colonial identity. Baghpati’s works always strike a delicate balance, avoiding the trap of cloying nostalgia; instead, there is a tacit understanding that his objects in their original form have had afterlives, yet their reckoning with the past was a violent and tumultuous process. His hybrid sculptures embody this act of resurrection and re-formation. For instance, in his small sculptural reliefs for this exhibition, it is challenging to determine whether one should delve into the reasons behind his fascination with history or, akin to Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s works, dissect and identify recognizable faces and representational objects. The sum or the whole? Which one began to decay first?
Marjan Bani Asadi draws inspiration from the material culture of her heritage and identity: the ancient pre-industrial past of Iran. Decorative images of tiny animal figurines woven into textile or painstakingly painted to mimic the materiality of carpets appear amidst horizontal and vertical striations that resemble the layers of packed clay and earth from which they may have been excavated. Other works on canvas mimic the intricate texture of a carpet, captivating in their flawless execution: a faint suggestion of an animal concealed within an abstract forest of patterns can also be seen as a painting. These pieces are displayed on canvas above a fireplace or as tapestries covering windows, evoking familiar domestic spaces and resonating with South Asia’s shared heritage. Asadi probes deeper, challenging the fractured connection between humans and nature. Themes of origin, inclusive heritage, and repatriation are woven into her curatorial narrative. Her woven animals evoke sculptures and figurines from the Indus Valley Civilization or the cave paintings of Altamira and Lascaux, bridging time and culture through their timeless resonance. Yet she draws inspiration from original cultural artefacts excavated in the 1920s from Western Iran. They reappeared in museum collections in Germany where she saw them and currently lives and works. The cultures of the ancient prehistoric past emphasized a link between man and nature that presupposed a more holistic understanding of their world where ecology and spirituality were in greater harmony. Yet they have “travelled” across time, cultures and geography to resurface far from their place of origin in a world that is on the cusp of destroying any vestige of their worldview.
Titled Sweet Lemons, Asadi’s sculptures of lemons in a glass appear to be resting in inertia like inanimate lumps resisting definition. Perhaps they would cease to even be considered representational forms if the botanical illustration of a painting of a tree above the fireplace behind it did not coerce one into considering the signification and relationship. The lemons look succulent but perhaps not edible. Are they rare or simply on the verge of extinction? After all, we live in an age defined by an insatiable need for consumption and the lure of trickery; genetic modification and cross breeding produces food that surpasses the beauty of nature but pose risks to the environment and health.
Rahma Shahid Karim’s installation is an immersive experience that commands significant attention. A small porch atop the mansion’s roof has been transformed into an oasis of towering reeds, turning the everyday into a realm of beauty and mystery. Does it evoke a battle between man and nature as one steps inside—a confrontation with the untamed encroaching upon our ordered, civil spaces, desecrating urbanity with the horror of dirt and buzzing insects? Perhaps! Certainly, for some visitors. Yet, it is more than that. It transcends the confines of art history’s textbook, moving beyond a mere surrealist—or ghostly, dreamlike—definition. This work is not an exercise in aesthetic indulgence; it is an intimate encounter with the pampas grass stems that sparks the imagination. They punctuate the private space in clusters, their fluffy plumes swaying gently in the breeze, allowing us to feel that very breeze within a house nestled in a congested neighborhood. It is a convergence of dystopian wasteland and dreamland—an attempt to resurrect the last remnants of our conscience. An undercurrent of anxiety runs through it, fueled by its strange sublimity: a disconcerting desire to experience the vastness fully, despite the disorientation it provokes. We wonder if it will extend further as we stand before the wall—or if it will remain confined. Perhaps not. A faux idyllic scene with pampas reeds in the foreground has been painted with frantic yet free brushstrokes on canvas and pinned to the wall—a mockery of the illusion. Maybe this is a metaphor for our future.
The use of pampas grass is intentional, theatrical and above all a subtle act of protest. Shahid narrates how ill-planned development of societies and gated communities will soon eradicate the floodplains of the Ravi River where one is most likely to see these plants. She deliberately appropriates and recreates a fragment of the landscape within the environs of the home to capture the phenomenological experience of the encounter. Her other works are a smorgasbord of seemingly mundane objects, executed with a wry sense of humour: a four-centered marble arch, a stacked table/bench that slices open and conjoins as needed, framed mirrors that mimic the cross-section of a log. Or are they simply pretty puddles of mud with reflective surfaces? The humour is subtle: even if mankind somehow survives apocalyptic upheaval and ecological collapse, perhaps these will be the clumsy, half-remembered fragments of nature our imagination manages to conjure.
The exhibition’s title and thematic focus suggest that envisioning the future is rooted in various undercurrents, with the most prominent being memories of the past. These strands invoke the primordial, mythical and post-colonial, intersecting with cultural heritage, collective memory and postmodern irony. While the performative aspect of the future is touched upon in some works, the narrative occasionally falters here, perhaps overwhelmed by the gloom and somberness characteristic of postmodern inquiry. Additionally, there are curatorial challenges; for instance, Talha Shams’s wondrous, exuberant flows and eddies of color risk being “lost in the crowd,” both thematically and visually. A more selective presentation featuring fewer artists with larger bodies of work might have fostered a deeper sense of connection, amplifying the intentions many artists sought to convey through their pieces.
As part of the exhibition, scheduled film screenings featured the documentary Life in the Walled City of Lahore. Directed by Shireen Pasha in 1991, the film now stands not only as a valuable historical record but also as a compelling inquiry into resilience and renewal. That the formation of lasting bonds and community can sustain ecologies, indigenous knowledge and evolve into a self-regulating system of cultures is effortlessly demonstrated through Pasha’s storytelling. It also lovingly sums up the context of the Show and with a fine flourish. It’s as if the documentary has effortlessly swept and scooped up every fragment of artistic discourse surrounding history and ecology, that which falls within the ambit of the exhibition and present it as a microcosm of all which is relevant and vital to understanding a possible future. The cultural traditions, practices, trades and lives in the Walled City are given voice through interviews of various people from different professions and generations. It is the interviewees who set the tone and assert their agency. Consequently, we gain access to a notably decolonized perspective that reveals their sense of belonging: we learn about the properties of metals, the intricacies of craft practices, the virtues of walking through lanes that stay cool in summer and the rules of kite flying and pigeon-fighting. Freed from romanticized notions of aesthetic decay we come to understand the inhabitants’ anxieties—those who acknowledge gender empowerment, progress and the march of time yet also cling to the enduring desire that gathering in groups to recite Heer always held its own special benefits.
In his essay titled The Old and the New Gadamer writes, “I believe that we can know one thing: the productive answers, which the future may bring to this question, depend on the fact that the future comes from its own past. Thus, we also contribute to this future, as the present that we are and the past that we will become.”16
Perhaps that is how to keep score in the future!
“Tomorrow isn’t Promised” a group Show curated by Fatma Shah opened on October 3, 2024 and remained on display till November 7, 2024. The exhibition was a collateral event to The Lahore Biennale 03.
Title Image: One of the Installation sites showcasing the works of Marjan Baniasadi, ‘A Walk Through’(left), Oil on Canvas, 35”x35”, ‘Dispersion’ (right), stitched wool on cotton fabric, 35”x78”, 2024.
All images are courtesy of Fatma Shah and are protected by copyright.
References
King, D. A. (2009). Postcolonial Cities. (pp. 1-5). Elsevier Inc.
Bridge, G. & Watson S. (2000). City Imaginaries. In Bridge, G. & Watson S. (Eds.)., A Companion to the City. (pp. 14-15). Blackwell Publishing.
Gadamer D. H. (2016). The Old and the New (1981). In Hermeneutics between History and Philosophy The Selected Writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer: Volume I (p.56). Bloomsbury Publishing.
King, D. A. (2000). Postcolonialism, Representation and the City. In Bridge, G. & Watson S. (Eds.)., A Companion to the City. (pp. 265-266). Blackwell Publishing.
Vince, G. (2014). Adventures in the Anthropocene A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made, (pp. 11-13). Vintage Classics.
Vince, G. (2014). Adventures in the Anthropocene A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made, (pp. 357-358). Vintage Classics.
F, Shah, personal communication, November 24, 2024.
Sheikh, M. (2015) Harking Back: Why ‘scourge of god’ ransacked Lahore every six years
https://www.dawn.com/news/1168119
Sheikh, M. (2023). Harking back: Gakhars, Timur and the Sayyids fight over Lahore
https://www.dawn.com/news/1759042
Umair, S. (2025). Lahore’s urban disaster: From colonial sprawl to capitalist chaos
https://www.dawn.com/news/1892744
The Story of Mehta Mansion – Temple Road Mozang (2024). Residence Stories – Lahorenamah [Video].Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeNnEh3Pr1k
- Vince, G. (2014)
- Vince, G. (2014)
- Umair, S. (2025)
- King, A.D. p.2 (2009)
- King, A.D. (2000)
- Mehta Mansion, (2024)
- https://www.baghehind.com/
- Personal Communication, (2024)
- The festival, often observed in the Southeast Asian region, commemorates the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad.
- Personal Communication, (2024)
- A chillum is a slender, conical pipe with a mouthpiece on the narrow end and a chamber on the wider end for holding a small amount of tobacco.
- womb of the earth
- Sheikh (2015), (2023)
- Sheikh (2023)
- Sheikh (2023)
- Gadamer (2016)
Zohreen Murtaza
Zohreen Murtaza is a visual artist, writer, and Lecturer in Cultural Studies at NCA Lahore. She earned her BFA and MA (Hons.) in Visual Art from NCA. Since then, she has extensively taught, researched, and written on art. Her articles and reviews have been published in Dawn (2017-2021), Friday Times, Artnow, ADA Magazine, and The Karachi Collective. She received the Nigaah Art Award for Art Critic in 2022. Her work has also appeared internationally in Canvas Dubai and TAKE on Art Magazine, India. Recent notable publications include an essay in ‘A Man with the Pen’, a limited-edition book on Pakistani artist Waqas Khan, and archive-based research leading to an exhibition and academic essay on master draughtsman Ustad Bashir-ud-din from Mayo School of Industrial Arts, Lahore.
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