Discursive Sessions
Fourth Karachi Biennale hosted the KB24 Discursive Weekend on November 2 & 3, 2024, at Sambara Art Gallery Auditorium. This well-attended event featured talks, workshops, and presentations that explored art as a powerful tool for examining food justice, history, and archiving.
Dr Emilia Terraciano (UK), presented her research on visual archives of the Bengal Famine of 1943, a man-catastrophe caused by British colonial policies. Termed as the “Forgotten Holocaust,” this underscored the intersection of art, history, and colonial politics.
Later in the evening, a multilingual mushaira on the theme Rizq I Risk took place. The poems underlined the shared concerns between all creatives. Leading poets like Afzal Ahmed Syed, Attiya Dawood, Sadia Baloch among others, recited their verses in Urdu, Sindhi, Pashto, English, and Brushiski.
The second day began with an online talk by Dr. Kylie Gilchrist, highlighting Rasheed Araeen’s exploration of food in his visionary art career.
The second session was dedicated to archiving as a tool of decolonization of knowledge. Tazeen Hussain, Hira Azmat, Veera Rustomji and Mahnoor Jalal presented their research on the endangered archives of four influential Pakistani publications, the feminist publishing house Simurgh and other journals/ magazines like She, NuktaArt and Paper Magazine. This four-month long research project was the initiative of Pakistan Association of Women Publishers and Editors in partnership with KB24, Aleph Review and Teeside University, UK.
The Discursive Weekend concluded with a workshop on archiving led by Dr. Madeleine Clements and a panel discussion with Tooba Masood Khan on her upcoming book Society Girl, co-authored with Saba Imtiaz, to highlight how archival investigation is crucial to the book based on the murder case of poet Mustafa Zaidi in Karachi.
Artists Talk and Panel Discussion
On October 27, 2024, a curator led panel discussion with the participating artists was held at Sambara Art Gallery Auditorium. Curator Waheeda Baloch invited KB24 artists to speak on their work and how it explores the theme through the lens of environmental challenges, colonial histories, and indigenous knowledge. Artists also shared their creative processes with the audience.
