The women in Farazeh Syed’s paintings come to us from colonially produced and disseminated photographs that never intended to tell the subjects’ real stories. Syed’s exploration of this history is presented in her solo exhibition, All the Women in Me.…
The Aurat March is a space where art meets activism. Here song and dance, talks and posters communicate the struggles of women: for control over their body, escape from abusive marriages, demands for basic rights like justice, security and education.…
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 craft6, 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 bujhki18, coverlets, and posh19, 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…