Shahana Afaq
Born in 1991 in Karachi (Pakistan)
Lives and works in Karachi (Pakistan)
Shahana Afaq received her BFA with Distinction from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi in 2015. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout Karachi, at galleries including: Canvas Gallery; FOMMA; Alliance Française; VM Gallery; Koel Gallery; and Sanat Gallery. Internationally, she is currently part of the Imago Mundi Project, ‘White Turban’ in collaboration with the Luciano Benetton Foundation, and as part of such, her work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale and Luciano Benetton ‘Imago Mundi’ collection, as well as the 8th Cairo Festival. She also took part in the Box Print International Exchange Programme with COFA, Sydney. As a multi-medial artist, her technical practice strives to express her ideas throughout a wide-range of mixed media. Afaq describes the basis of her art practice as “Mushahadah”, which she defines as: “To look, to observe, and to gain experience with observation”, as seen in her constantly developing experiments with diverse media and aesthetics, each deliberately chosen to visually elaborate to the audience a specific experience, and how her conscious and subconscious observations have shaped this.
Afaq’s site-specific video installation, Let’s Celebrate, is a joyful expression of the spontaneity, innocence, energy and positivity that she experienced as a child. Within her work there is a phantasmagoria of different moments and sensory information that have been visually translated to create a kaleidoscopic homage to the beauty of childhood, and the nostalgia that comes with retrospection. The placement of the work, in a small, separate ceramic studio of the NJV School, provides the perfect space for Afaq’s video installation to enter into a rose-tinted reality – ‘simpler times’ – but also makes a poignant statement on the importance of art for children’s creative expression.
