Artwork by
Reflective writing about the pieces I create or experiment with in studio during this MA, along with samples of sketchbooks and notebooks etc.
On November 23 and 24th I’m part of a group exhibit called “InstaMania”. Got lots of work to do for it but Unit 1 Assessment comes first! On the plus side, my business cards are ready. To do list: Lots of things to create Finish a couple of Iridescent Alloys get in touch with exprint to see if some of my work can be turned into hi-def prints!
Hospitals all over the world have really beautiful murals or paintings on their walls. It makes sense; the patients could use a therapeutic and relaxing ambience. Not so in Karachi. Most hospitals look like dumps in the middle of dump sites. And the bigger, better ones have a clinical edge that is almost frightening. Street art has been done many times to beautify Karachi (soon overwritten by graffiti, more often than not) but hospitals hadn’t been paid attention to much. Coincidentally, around the same time as I planned this, another architect, Haya Qadri, came up with a similar plan titled …
The Second Floor (T2F) was one of the first open artistic spaces in Karachi. The kind of place where anyone could go to vent, express and find a sanctuary for freedom of speech. I have been fascinated with it as long as I can remember. Now a lot of such places have opened up, but somehow, none of them embody that spirit of tolerance which T2F did under Sabeen Mahmud. Sabeen Mahmud was murdered for her tolerance and her desire to inspire change. Murdered by the very same crowd that protested the streets when a Christian woman was acquitted for …
A significant part of my project proposal has been stepping out of my comfort zone to see if there were any artistic avenues in Jeddah — contrary to popular opinion. Looking at my old blog posts I realize I can date it back to that day at Arbab al Heraf. That day two things coincidentally came to my attention: I realized that, hidden in the nooks and crannies of Jeddah, circles of writers and artists bloomed Jeddah, and KSA as a whole, was undergoing a mini-cultural revolution Thus began an exploration that has gained momentum over this last year, almost too …
It’s strange because even in my last tutorial with Jonathan I voiced my worry about my varied interests and whether they would at some point converge to make my work a coherent whole. And now, barely a few months later, I can see so many intersections in those interests and I have no difficulty in claiming that I see myself as an artist, writer, humanitarian, social media influencer and, of course, a mom. Literature and art had always intersected for me, and now with the research paper I delve into this connection some more. Then, of course, I have been …