The Open Book

Join us for a conversation between Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi, novelist Kamila Shamsie and curator Nada Raza, reflecting on the themes raised within the exhibition Vanishing Points. The art and literature of urban Pakistan respond to historic forces that have shaped its contemporary identity. Reckoning with its geo-strategic place in the global hierarchy, successive conflicts, and economic and political precarity, this generation of cultural producers navigate ground that is fraught, yet fertile.

About the Speakers

Imran Qureshi, recipient of Pakistan’s Presidential Award Sitara-i-Imtiaz and Chevalier de L'ordre des Arts and des lettres, was born in Hyderabad, Pakistan in 1972. He completed his BFA with Distinction in 1993 from the National College of Art (NCA) in Lahore, where he started teaching shortly after.

Qureshi’s work is firmly rooted in the tradition of miniature painting, which he still teaches at the NCA. Having exhibited locally and internationally for the past 25 years, he has greatly expanded the language of miniature painting across traditionally sized crafted work, site-specific installations, videos and paintings on paper and canvas.

His art is exemplary of a practice that combines a local background with a global outlook; artistically, socially and politically. His work has been acquired by notable public collections in major institutions, including the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and has been exhibited in major Biennales and more than 130 exhibitions globally.

Qureshi has been was awarded with the Sharjah Biennale 10 Art prize (2011), the Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year Award (2013), the Medal of Arts Award by State Department

Washington (2017), and earlier the Associateship of NCA (2009), as well as the Haji Muhammad Sharif Award for Miniature Painting (1993).

Nada Raza is the Director of Alserkal Arts Foundation. She was founding Artistic Director of the Ishara Art Foundation, having returned to Dubai after several years of curatorial and research experience at Tate, and prior to that at Iniva and Green Cardamom. She has curated exhibitions internationally, with a focus on this region, particularly South and West Asia. She holds an MA from the Chelsea College of Art and Design and is a doctoral candidate at the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Kamila Shamsie is the author of eight novels, including Best of Friends, Burnt Shadows, Kartography and Home Fire, which have been translated into over 30 languages. Home Fire won the Women’s Prize for Fiction and was long listed for the Man Booker Prize. Four of her novels have won awards from the Pakistan Academy of Letters. A Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature, she grew up in Karachi, and now lives in London and in Doha where she is the inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Georgetown University in Qatar.

Host or Publisher Alserkal Avenue