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Join us for an engaging conversation with Lahore-based artist Saba Khan on her practice that engages with memory and the public sphere in Pakistan.
Her multimedia work traffics in the language of memorial, monument and public art. From lush beaded paintings of cakes to miniature dioramas of a bureaucrat’s boring office; from flashing LED signs of stereotyped religious imagery to embellished textile banners honouring the mundane generator, she balances grandeur, artifice and satire in order to explore the cracks.
Saba Khan will also introduce her work with Pak Khawateen Painting Club, a satirical artist collective founded in 2019, currently exhibiting at Jameel Arts Centre within ‘Proposals for a Memorial to Partition’
The conversation is moderated by Lucas Morin, Exhibitions Curator at Art Jameel.
Saba Khan. b.1982. Lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan.
Saba founded Murree Museum Artist Residency (2014 – 2020) and a satirical artist collective Pak Khawateen Painting Club (PKPC, 2019) triggered from the commission of Lahore Biennale 02. Shows/residencies include: Karachi Biennale (2018), New York Times (2018), “ONE” at COMO Lahore (2019), “Zinda-dil-a’an-e-Lahore–Billboard Project” (2020) an initiative of Lahore Biennale Foundation, Paul Mellon Centre (2021), Onassis AiR (2022) Jameel Arts Centre (2022), Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023). Grants: Sharjah Art Foundation (2020), Graham Foundation (2020), British Council (2020, 2021, 2022). Khan teaches at the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan. Her work is in the collections of Sharjah Art Foundation (PKPC) and Ford Foundation.
Pak Khawateen Painting Club. est. 2019. Lahore, Pakistan.
Pak Khawateen Painting Club (translated from Urdu as Good Pakistani Women’s Painting Club) was formed by invitation to create a new commission at the Lahore Biennale 02 (2020). Its core concerns revolve around water bodies, hydro architecture, municipal, bureaucratic, and ecological conflicts. The Painting Club investigates powerful mega structures that result in the displacement of indigenous populations, ecological imbalance and environmental devastation. The unequal division of resources, the inundation of histories and hydrological engineering find an unexpected foe in its (not so) “Pak” provocateurs (more simply, members): Saulat Ajmal, Amna Hashmi, Saba Khan, and Zohreen Murtaza. The artist collective was founded in 2019 in Lahore, where some of the members live and work.
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Artist headshot by Tara Ali Khan
