nca thesis display 2023

NCA Lahore Thesis Display 2023

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The National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, Pakistan is a premier institution for higher education in the fields of fine arts, design, and architecture. Founded in 1875, NCA has a rich history and a reputation for producing some of the most talented and innovative artists and designers in the country.

One of the things that set NCA apart is its focus on traditional techniques and craftsmanship. Students are taught not only the latest technologies and techniques but also the historical and cultural context of their chosen field. This approach helps students develop a strong foundation in their craft, as well as the ability to think critically and creatively.

NCA Lahore offers undergraduate and graduate programs in a wide range of disciplines, including fine arts, graphic design, industrial design, and architecture. The faculty at NCA is made up of experienced professionals and practicing artists and designers, who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the classroom. The college has state-of-the-art facilities including workshops, studios, and labs, providing students with the necessary tools and resources to excel in their field.

One of the unique features of NCA is its annual thesis display, where graduating students showcase their final projects to the public. The display attracts a diverse audience of art lovers, industry professionals, and potential employers, providing students with a platform to present their work and receive valuable feedback.

NCA Lahore also has a vibrant student life, with a variety of clubs and societies that allow students to explore their interests and passions. The college organizes different events like art exhibitions, lectures, and workshops throughout the year, providing students with opportunities to learn from and network with professionals in their field.

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NCA Lahore Annual Thesis Display

The National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, Pakistan is known for its annual thesis display, where graduating students showcase their final projects to the public. The event, which is open to the public, provides a platform for students to present their work and receive valuable feedback from industry professionals, peers, and art enthusiasts. The display is a celebration of the creativity and hard work of the students who have spent years honing their craft at NCA.

The annual thesis display is a highlight of the academic calendar at NCA Lahore, and it attracts a diverse audience from the art and design community. The display features a wide range of projects from students in the college’s undergraduate and graduate programs, including fine arts, design, and architecture. Visitors can expect to see a variety of mediums, including painting, sculpture, graphic design, industrial design, and architecture.

The display is not only an opportunity for students to showcase their work but also an excellent opportunity for the public to see the latest trends and innovations in the field of art and design. The projects on display are a reflection of the student’s creativity and the skills they have acquired during their time at NCA Lahore. The display serves as an inspiration for art enthusiasts, students, and professionals alike.

The annual thesis display is also an opportunity for industry professionals to discover new talent and recruit potential employees. Many of the students who participate in the display go on to have successful careers in the art and design industry.

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Artwork of NCA Lahore Student

My father, a local artist, serves as my motivation. He was really a simple man from the village (Layyah). Despite the fact that his parents had strongly desired that their son become a farmer like their ancestors, he does not have permission from them to pursue a career as an artist. His desire to further their education drove him to Faisalabad in 1972, where he did so. He started part-time work in his preferred sector at the same time (Screen Printing). Unfortunately, because he was autonomous, he was unable to finish his education owing to financial problems. After gaining a significant amount of expertise and having a strong passion for his work, he develops ideas for screen printing. In 1984, he moved to Lahore and opened his own business (Screen Printing). He was still managing their firm at the time without having earned an arts degree.

I selected Seven designs from my father’s earlier work because they were the most marketable at the time. I transformed the drawings, which were in traditional design, into interior design. I’m working to update my father’s old work to meet contemporary standards. In my own nation, I couldn’t locate any wallpaper with screen printing. I provide Solid Vinyl with screen-printed wallpaper. In Pakistan, I too couldn’t get solid vinyl wallpaper.

Solid vinyl wallpaper based is made completely of vinyl that can withstand water and Scrubbing. Because it is durable and washable, this wallpaper is ideal for use in high-traffic areas including kid’s rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms. It is long-lasting, washable, and tear- and scratch-resistant. Because the vinyl is put in “solid” form rather than a liquid, it is more durable than wallpaper with a cloth or paper backing.

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Sample of Artwork

Contact information.

Artist: Zain Nawaz Roll no: 164-c Contact Number: 0311-1500209 Email Address: [email protected]

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MashAllah Congratulations bro God bless you ☺️

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sara’s Substack

Day One (1) of Exploring NCA’s Yearly Thesis Display

National college of arts (nca) came back this year with another thesis display for their graduating semester, from 20th january to the 29th….

National College of Arts (NCA) came back this year with another thesis display for their graduating semester, from 20th January to the 29th of January. I went there on the 25th with two of my friends and got the chance to converse with some of the artists with regards to their work, the inspiration behind it and what they meant to tell the viewer. I was able to view a limited number of displays because of a time crunch and traffic turbulence (thrown smack-dab in my face when I got a call from my mother telling me Jail Road had been shut down because of a current political fiasco). However, here’s a summation of the talks I did have and what I had to learn before rushing back home (not before getting stuck in a 2 hour traffic blockade).

The works exhibited in this display were quoted to “ investigate personal connections and disconnections ”.

“Underlying darkness and a sense of the absurd are thematic concerns that also hold dominant focus in the work here”.

Mahrukh Khizar’s prints were described as exploring the “elemental relationship between mothers and daughters, and attempts to understand her own mother outside her role as parent and caregiver”. Nighttime features as a prominent motif in her work, “ lending a paradoxically enchanting and eerie sensibility to her work ”. In talk with Mahrukh, she mentioned how her works titled “Labours of Love” take a lot of direct inspiration from childhood pictures that she saw in photo albums, and how she wanted to explore the relationship she has with her mother through her artistic talent. There is an everlasting imprint of feminine melancholy, love and its intricacies, as well as rage, in her work. She discussed with me the process for her etchings: using zinc metal plates and a needle for etching, later dipping them into an acid bath, and leaving behind the prints. The nighttime is thematically significant in her work, adding a layer of brooding desolation.

I also conversed with Asjad Faraz about his videos, which play out, both literally and figuratively, the absurdity of life and lived experience. In talk about what inspired his video installations, he talked about the idea that everything an artist does inherently becomes art. He performed in front of a camera and edited it into collages to make it more aesthetically pleasing. He was inspired by the monotony of his days during his summer vacation, which he described as consisting of watching movies and sleeping.He decided to write a script and wrote one dialogue that is present in his installation titled “Adhey Poney”- “Agarr kisi ke gharr mein anday chori houn gey tau uska zimidar main hoon gaa” ( “If eggs were stolen in someone’s house, would I be responsible for that?” ). Much of the storyline revolves around two men in conversation and a flower garland. Asjad told me that he ended up writing the script, but ended up thinking it was terrible. But he put his inhibitions aside to shoot the script as a conversation between two of his own selves, the surrealistic and absurdist aspects merely seeping into the work naturally. “I give my work meaning after it has been conceived and given shape,” he said as we discussed the intricacies of art and assigning meaning to it. I asked him if he had a certain symbolism in mind when he created these or merely decided to leave it to the viewer to assign meaning. He stated “Waiting for Godot” as an inspiration for one of the pieces , which my friends and I were ecstatic over as we had loved it in our introductory course to postmodern literature. He also discussed the interpersonal themes in one of his installations; and what spoke to me the most was this inherent sense of underlying dread and anguish about existence that followed most of them. A friend noted the use of colour tones in his work, starting off warm and bright, regressing to cooler tones, and ending with black and white. The last piece, also being an existentialist one, marks it as special as it finds inspiration in Camus’s “The Stranger.”

We also talked about the thematic significance of his other installation, which features a series of eggs in different stages: whole, disintegrating, broken, and whole again. He talked about how he found inspiration in Roy Andersson’s work and decided to talk about the cyclic quality of existence through his installation.

Roshail Gilani’s meticulous prints were described as “ forming an intimate album of cityscapes that bring to focus the quiet and hectic slices of urban life ”. In my chat with him, he told me about how he found most of his inspiration in his technique and working on zinc plates as a medium. The process was so riveting that he decided to incorporate it into his project. He talked about how the scenery depicted in his work zooms into the intricacies of his everyday life, taking the specifics into account. In my chat with him, he told me about how he found most of his inspiration in his technique and working on zinc plates as a medium. The process was so riveting that he decided to incorporate it into his project. He talked about how the scenery depicted in his work zooms into the intricacies of his everyday life, taking the specifics into account. He talked about the tennis court depicted in one of his works, which he passed by every day and which is still a part of his life; it is basically a celebration of the mundane specifics of the cityscape that he found solace in. He chose not to depict landscapes but laser-focus on the minute details a part of the landscape, which grants his work a refreshing aura.

Imran Gul’s hyperrealistic series of portraits in graphite exceeds the perceived limits of a simple pencil. He talked to me about how none of the elements depicted in his art are staged; all of them depict the lives of everyday laymen around us that we overlook. “ This has to be my favorite… the fly just happened to be sitting there ,” he said, pointing to a hyper-realistic painting of an elderly man gazing into the distance with a fly seated right across his nose. ”This character was super goofy; he wasn’t sitting anywhere.” He stressed his representation of the lives of people in his everyday surroundings. He talked about the inspiration behind his medium and the exploration of pencil sketches — “ how a simple pencil sketch can change into something else, same with the subject matter.” When he went on his journey, he started off with baggage about the subject matter as it seemed to loom that with skill came responsibility, but he chose to drop it. “Instead of thinking about what to draw, I decided to think through the drawing.” He decided to find his medium in the mundane and banal things of everyday life, and in this banality, he found the beauty of details. He talked about how we do not register details very often, but through his art, he was able to capture those little details and immortalise them in art. I asked him if it was a conscious decision to depict people from a certain social status quo that we gloss over rather than people we interact with on a daily basis and share a path with. “ See, I wanted the viewer to make their own decisions about the story, especially the background; the figure itself tells about the background; you know, what’s in the surroundings and the settings of certain images, and the time specifications … I am not the one making it objective, it is all subjective. It depends on how you perceive it.”

Fatima Raheel’s linocut illustrations form a non-linear children’s story. “ The images are both playful and eerie and are concerned with children’s comprehension of loneliness and neglect and the common inability to deal with such feelings and situations ”, as the display was aptly described. Fatima talked about how illustrators, cartoonists, children’s storybook authors, and children’s cartoons served as her main inspiration behind her work because the more graphic style of art was the one she enjoyed the most as well as the art she wanted to create. “The subject matter of this is a little haphazard, but I wanted to depict a certain, specific part of a child’s life at the age of 8 or 9 years old when they start recognising emotions like abandonment and loneliness,” she said in a conversation explaining her work. “…a feeling of displacement… I used my characters as a conjunction for those emotions.” Her characters are two young girls who grow up to be women, and a recurring element depicted is a tree, a house, and a set of books. “The inspiration behind these objects comes from the belief that all things living and all things lived in have a spirit, and you can form a connection with it; in a sense, you need to respect it.” The adventures depicted in her art are metaphorical and nonlinear; she comments, “mainly because I am not a literature student,” invoking a laugh out of me. “Is it perhaps the axis between growing up, adulthood, and childhood that forms the crux of your story?” I ask her. She agreed that the story can be convoluted in a myriad of ways, and the aspect of story-telling was perhaps a learning curve for her and made her understand how she could differently approach laying out a storyline. “I think that is the beauty of art: you can feed the viewer a visual story and yet have hundreds of different stories, while literature stylistically requires a strong plot and vivid characterisation,” I muse. She agrees, commenting, “I struggled with not spoon-feeding the viewer the story… and conveying that sense of dissociation, of moving houses.” She commented that the sentiment is especially true for young women. A friend commented that they like how the art is supposed to be a children’s comic but is gritty, dark, and horror-esque in its presentation. “Well, that’s because you’re looking at it as an adult,” Fatima explained, “whereas a child would focus on the more innocent aspects and gravitate towards the trees and rabbits.” She talked about wanting to highlight the dissonance between adult perspective and childlike wonder through her work. Fatima commented on childhood cartoons carrying deeper thematic significance: ”Ever rewatched Courage the Cowardly Dog as an adult? It carries themes such as childhood sexual abuse, and underlying aspects we didn’t notice as children — even Winnie the Pooh, you know. I studied these cartoons and children’s books. It hit me that these are written by adults, and there is no way that the stories depicted are from the perspective of a child. No matter what, they will have this tainted perspective… kids have a very unadulterated approach to life.” My friend asked her what her favourite piece was, and she told us that unfortunately her favourite piece did not get put up. The display that she wanted was to have a book formulated from her prints so it would allow the viewer to explore the story in that format; she expressed some disappointment in not being able to curate her work in the proper medium, which would give it the appropriate feel. She talked about how she formed a 54-page book with accordion folding and marbled the pages for display. ”Book binding is also a part of my theme.” She expressed the hope of getting it published in physical form, and I wish her the best of luck in her endeavour to do so.

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Emerging Voices: A Kaleidoscope Of Perspectives In NCA’s 2024 Thesis Display

The nca thesis display stands as a testament to the enduring power of art in unravelling the threads of existence. as viewers engage with these visual narratives, they are invited to transcend the confines of conventional thinking..

• Sara Javed Rathore
• Features , Main Slider

In a world defined by divergent viewpoints, NCA’s artist thesis display serves as a poignant exploration of the complex interplay between perspectives, with a myriad of mediums at use. The canvases echo the tangible rage felt within the human spirit, challenging prevailing norms and questioning the very essence of identity, inviting viewers to contemplate the intricacies of personal and collective struggles.

Noor’s art reminded me of Albert Aurier’s momentous essay ‘Le Symbolisme en Peinture”-- therein, Aurier talks of symbolism in art:

“The goal of painting . . . cannot be the direct representation of objects. Its end purpose is to express ideas as it translates them into a special language…all the while remembering that the sign, however indispensable, is nothing in itself and the idea alone is everything.”

This sentiment is ripe in Noor-ul-Huda’s work and she captures it in such a dreamlike trance that you feel suspended between lullabies sung by the morphing color palette of her paintings. Her work explores the dissociation of existence in terms of human relationships and the liminal space around them. “To exist in a space yet to not  be there,” she said, walking with me back and forth between her displays and pointing out the minute details.

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Noor’s painting, specifically the ones titled ‘ Farida ke Baagh Mein Vincent ki Shaam’ and ‘Maghreb’ were striking– bound by the fading quality of a memory and the slow corrosion of time. When talking about the medium, she pointed to specific portions that molded together and yet disconnected– two women, suspended in time, looking out at the audience in a manner that said, “Do you see me? I am looking at you– are you looking at me? Am I the persistent voyeur, or are you?” I look closely and there is a third set of eyes– Frida Kahlo’s visage imprinted on a cushion in the settee. “The treatment I evolved… is in layers… I left it in washes because I was disconnecting the space, yes, but also the past and the present.”

Degas’ work has always been to me a study in fluidity– from The Rehearsal to The Tub . Noor’s work too is a reminder of the study of motion in art– especially owing to the fact that she combines the viscosity of paint with the motion of life shows up in an incredible, harrowing manner.

Iman’s art was striking– I had a grin on my face as soon as I saw it. If other pieces had subtlety to the manner in which they countered the experience of being a woman in a patriarchal society, Iman’s work took the narrative and turned it to face the glaring problem. I thought of the sillage in the walls in monsoon. Water seeps through, the plaster cracks, the wall crumbles, and then we see the glaring issue. Iman’s work is evocative, gritty and quite literally, layered in the way it perceives the problem of existing in a society that is so people focused. I was overjoyed by the warmth and passion with which she dealt with something that leaves one grappling with their own identity.

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Sometimes, art feels like a bath of cold water on a December morning. That is exactly what Iman encapsulates– through a medium that stands out.

“You have been to the tailor, right? You will talk them through your measurements, and it still ends with them saying– no, this might be too ill-fitting. Add to that the fact that when I joined a musical society in NCA, the one question I got most often was– you wear the hijab . Will you seriously sing and play music?”

She said it all with such a bright smile on her face and I could see that she had taken the shame and humiliation that society casts on any person wanting to exist outside the box, and channelled it into her art. It pinches, yes, as the intricately used safety pins in her work represent, yet on the outside all one sees is an expertly put together net of sorts– a protective element– yet only the wearer of the shroud comprehends the angst and pain of donning it. 

In Futurist Painting: Technical Manifesto, Marinetti’s translation of the work best describes what Iman captures and how she transcends the traditional realms of expression:

“Let’s… proclaim the absolute and complete abolition of finite lines and the contained statue.”

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Maidah Waqar Butt’s art reminded me of my childhood affinity for the Indus Valley Civilization– there was lately conversation on a lot of platforms, where people argued what historical period was their childhood obsession. The consensus was mostly the Roman Empire or the Egyptian civilization. I was instantly reminded of my love for the Mesopotamian and Harappan architecture, begging my parents to take me to visit the sites (unfortunately, we never did). Maidah’s expertly created figurines that give these neolithic sculptures color and life took me back about ten years ago to that time.  Venus of Willendorf was one of those figures I always looked at with awe– when we currently see the ‘celebration’ of the female form, what we see is it reduced to its aesthetic appeal; it exists to be beautiful and to be consumed.

Maidah’s art steps out of the 21st century bonds of everything existing for the consumer and takes us back to an era that was rooted in naturalism– it celebrated the female form and its anatomy, bringer of life, not stuck in the plastic confined of a neoliberal world that reduces it to nill. Neolithic figurines from Europe, to Asia to Africa looked at the anatomy of the female body with reverence, I’d even argue, worshipped it– it was she that ensured survival.

Venus of Willendorf was one of those figures I always looked at with awe– when we currently see the ‘celebration’ of the female form, what we see is it reduced to its aesthetic appeal; it exists to be beautiful and to be consumed.

Maidah, in her pieces such as ‘ embroil’ and ‘bearing/baring,’ takes the reins and steers the conversation back towards our roots. I asked her, “Have you been criticized for your representation of the raw, vulnerable female form without the confines constituted by patriarchy?” as she showed me some of her expertly created clay figurines. “Of course, from a lot of people. Especially ones closest to me– but this is what I enjoy about the representation of the female form in Neolithic art. It doesn’t shy away, and neither did I.”

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Vania Mazhar’s representation of the mundanity of life struck me as soon as I walked into the gallery– her display is titled “Synchronicity II”-- “ ...many miles away, there’s a shadow on the door. ” Looking at Vania’s art, I was struck by the synchronization of the perspectives, embedded with the glimpse of a daughter looking at the roaring cadence of what her pupils grab, and the image of it imprints into her retina– just for it to become a memory. Like a perfumed envelope, it haunts and it warms the heart, an overpowering sense of fleeting nostalgia grabbing you and telling you– you have lived this, and so have I.

You watched it happen and now you shall remember, remember, remember all those fleeting memories of your personhood. It is a whiplash and a soothing balm at the same time; to my eye, it combines at the core of it the delicate memorialization of Realism with the rebellious strokes and stylistic endeavours of Impressionism– saying “this is remembrance– I am remembering it in the haze of my memory and embracing the etches of it, capturing the coherence of this existence rather than the semantics of it.” “Watching the Same Drama Everyday” and “Sebastian Watching A Video” especially struck me in the manner they manage to capture what Vania termed “the mundanity of existence.”

“I am sort of searching for these mundane moments around my house… looking at my father just being himself, that’s where the inspiration strikes. I am trying to find the balance between a sketch and a painting,” she explained to me.

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Looking at Vania’s artwork reminded me of Mary Cassatt– her interplay of perspective and dimensionality, combined with sheer, raw, sentimentality was reminiscent of Cassatt’s The Child’s Bath.

Meeral Mirza’s work in textile is as if walking into the pages of the famed Firdawsi’s Shahnameh, or finding yourself in Isfahan, looking at the delicate cuerda seca tile work of the Mihrab from Madrassa Imami. It is the perfect union of teachings and visuals of Islamic Arab scholars like Abu Ma'shar– an amalgamation of culture, faith and the Golden Age (the intricate gold details wink and wave in the subtle light, layering on top of each other to create elements perhaps only the sun can shine a light to– watercolor on top of Wasli, and digitally printed onto Mesuri fabric). It is a brilliant marriage between the intricacies of decorative detailing and perspectives on textile.

“I'm Kashmiri. In Kashmir, like, astrology is a pretty big thing… there is Vedic astrology, and then the Persian and Islamic one. The visuals of the latter spoke to me… astrology is basically the father of science. Because first we had astrology, then we had alchemy, and then from that we have chemistry as we know it today. And the second thing is that stocks are also like a prediction sort of thing, right? So if we're gonna make fun of women for believing in astrology, then we can make fun of men for believing in, like, you know, the stock market.”

The medium adds an inherent sense of delicacy and airiness that permeates the pieces and draws the viewer in. But it is much more complex– Meeral’s artist statement explains: “Astrology is a controversial subject… Science and mathematical calculations surrounding this field are what distinguish it from any superstitious pseudoscience. I have created my own visual vocabulary to find the junction between Persian style astrological paintings and textile design.” Each piece is a brilliant homage to a specific astrological sign, an interplay of texture and light and fine detailing.

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In a talk with Meeral about the implications of her choice when so many women are demonized for believing in astrology, she put it best to the face of patriarchal critics: “I'm Kashmiri. In Kashmir, like, astrology is a pretty big thing… there is Vedic astrology, and then the Persian and Islamic one. The visuals of the latter spoke to me… astrology is basically the father of science. Because first we had astrology, then we had alchemy, and then from that we have chemistry as we know it today. And the second thing is that stocks are also like a prediction sort of thing, right? So if we're gonna make fun of women for believing in astrology, then we can make fun of men for believing in, like, you know, the stock market.”

Syeda Ailia Hassan’s work is a study in nostalgia, combined with a fusion of the contemporary to create furniture and products that transcend the fine lines of a relatively stiff medium to leave you awed at the sheer delicacy and wonder of her craft– she combined brass plating, beautifully melded into wood. Combining the sharp and hard contours of wood, stylized to be contemporary and experimental with the traditional elements of brass make it stand out– it is in a way reminiscent to me of Futurist elements of design combining with the traditional elements of post-Islamic metalwork, intricately combined. The past, holding onto the future and the present– a study in time.

Ailia stated that her main inspiration behind her work has always been mother– “This craft you can see on the brass, my mother used to sculpt it. She did it for 25 years.” The fine contours in the wood are topographical representations of the place where the said art was first founded. Qalam-Zani in Persian, she explained, is an amalgamation of the words “pen” and “hitting”-- the perfect word for it.

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She further explained: “I really wanted something which was small and which contained all the elements. I had water and the birds and the, and the glass.   Each part of the console and the mirror are in this.” Minimalism, she explained, is lovely, but so overdone that she wanted it to be minimal in a manner that combines the love for texture that we have as Pakistanis. She laughed, explaining how her identity as an artist translates into her work too: “So when I think about myself as a person, I'm a very extra person, very extra personality with a very minimal…what do you call it? Sugar coating? And I think my pieces show that.”

Sumaiya Hayee’s work is a study not only in the colours and intensity of the life in Old Lahore and its streets, strewn with life that is aeons apart from the sanitary life on the roads and streets of the more ‘modern’ Lahore– the Lahore that boasts its elitism and forgets the existence of Old Lahore and its people. Sumaiya explained to me that she herself is from Androon Lahore , and she wanted to pay homage to the beauty in the little moments of life there– especially to the working class there.

Rage rips you apart and then puts you back together. I am reminded of Munch and The Scream, originally aptly titled Despair– to take emotions rooted in the real and the binary and project them into a world with intense hues, colors and morphing perspectives to amplify them and give them a sense of reality that is so heightened that all your sense are attached to viewing it.

“We only go to them when we need work done– the tailors, the shopkeepers– we refuse to see them as human beings that have a life apart from perhaps… serving us,” she put aptly. Her art is rich and experiments with texture and color while also staying true to Realism– it is as if the images of life are superimposed to give one a view into what we so often ignore; the color and beauty of it that we forget in our own obsession with self and individuality in a capital driven society. 

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Fatima Ahmed’s work is a study in rage and personhood– a metamorphosis reminiscent of Kafka’s titular character Gregor Samsa. Rage rips you apart and then puts you back together. I am reminded of Munch and The Scream, originally aptly titled Despair– to take emotions rooted in the real and the binary and project them into a world with intense hues, colors and morphing perspectives to amplify them and give them a sense of reality that is so heightened that all your sense are attached to viewing it. Fatima too, manages to do it in a manner that reminds me of the German Expressionists of the early 20th century– not to show what the eye sees but to show what the mind and heart feel. Munch, when asked about his painting, said: “And I sensed a great, infinite scream pass through nature.”

When I talked to Fatima, she better explained her artistic vision: “I was in the midst of some realizations… boundaries between the inner and outer self. There was a warped sense of responsibility and keeping these separated, so the rage came out in some of the paintings. I really like stream of consciousness in literature, and wanted that in my art. This is an exploration of identity.”

Ayla Zahir Kayani’s work crosses the realms of ordinary to leave you suspended in ways that make you question your own reality and existence– ‘Forced Convergence’, ‘Serendipity in Existence’ and ‘Somatic Reflux’ are all pieces that stand out and hold the viewer captive– it reminds me of a scent that permeates the air so strongly that it overpowers. First you retch, unable to understand whether it is disgust, and then you grow accustomed to it and a sense of calm takes over. Yet the magic still permeates.

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A lot of Ayla’s work is about reflection and uses a reflective medium that also combines fragility and sensitivity. One of my personal favorites is perhaps the most jarring– a sink clogged with gunk and water, pooling at the center. You are unable to find your own reflection. You look up, searching for a mirror and all that stands is a ghost of the said mirror, shadow imprinted on the wall in red but never seen. You don’t have a way out to look at your reflection in a manner that is not distorted; but it needs time to be spent with it to understand the intricacy of it. Another one is a cage enclosing a set of white feathers at the center of the room. Purity, plucked and placed in confines. Ayla explained her use of engine oil: “And although you can't see your exact reflection, you know that there exists a reflection. And I was using engine oil exactly for that. When untouched… you can see yourself in it.”

Muneeba Zahid Khan’s artist statement best pays homage to her identity, translating it into her work. “She specializes in miniature painting and explores themes of identity and displacement through her artwork. Growing up with her first adoptive family, she often felt like a shadow caught between two worlds… she expresses these difficulties through her art, using medical reports and x-rays as her canvas.” The presence of hollow, shadowy figures permeates her work in a way that is jarring– at first glance, you are looking at expertly put together medical records, joined together, as if an exploration of pain itself. At a nearer glance, you see the culmination of whose pain it is.

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As someone that has been chronically ill, I know it best– doctors’ offices, being suspended between reality and truth, feeling as if you are a file number or a doctor’s note. Never feeling like a whole person, merely a shadow of a shadow. When you look closer at Muneeba’s work, you see the person shine through. In x-rays and MRIs, she makes artwork such as ‘Posheeda’, ‘Are You There?’ and ‘Suffering’-- a child pulled apart and grieving, a woman yin-and-yang, lying in foetal position. The medical sanitary is given a humanistic perspective. In conversation with Muneeba, she explained it best– “You always remember, no matter where you are displaced, thus the MRI. Science and art are very divorced fields but I was previously in medicine, but then I decided to go into arts. I think perhaps that was a factor too.” Her medium stands out– because she is perhaps the first person to find the middle route between the two. 

In the culmination of this artistic journey, the thesis display stands as a testament to the enduring power of art in unravelling the threads of existence. As viewers engage with these visual narratives, they are invited to transcend the confines of conventional thinking and embrace a collective dialogue that dismantles the chains of not contemplating the threads of our lives. Only through art, we can call to redefine personhood in a world yearning for unity amidst discord.

Sara Javed Rathore is an author and poet from Lahore. Her first collection of poetry, 'Meraki', won the Daud Kamal Presidential Award from the Pakistan Academy of Letters in 2020. She has also published another collection of poetry titled ‘Obituaries for the Dead and the Undead.’

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