Saba Khan (b. 1982) completed her BFA from National College of Arts (2005), with a Distinction and MFA from Boston University, (2010), on Fulbright Scholarship. Residencies attended include: Civitella Ranieri Foundation, UNESCO Aschberg Bursary, Italy; SEHER, Jaisalmer, India; Vermont Studio Center, USA; Indus Valley School, Karachi, Pakistan; 11th Gwangju Biennale International Curator Course, South Korea. She was a juror for UNESCO Aschberg Bursary. Solo shows: Canvas Art Gallery, Karachi; Rohtas 2, Taseer Gallery, Lahore. Group shows: Monitor 4, SAVAC, Toronto; Kara Film Festival, Karachi; Inter-national Art Festival, Kathmandu; Lawrie Shabibi Gallery, Dubai; Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Thai-land; Affordable Art Fair, New York; India Art Fair; Aicon Gallery, New York. Shortlisted for The Future Generation Art Prize, Victor Pinchuk Foundation. Published in n.paradoxa International Feminist Art Journal, Tran-Asia; The Eye Still Seeks by Salima Hashmi.
She lives in Lahore and teaches at the National College of Arts and founded Murree Museum Artists’ Residency, Murree, an artist-led initiative to support artists/writers, in 2014.
Khan’s work is pumped with humour and satire; it looks at the class divides through layers of local aes-thetics. Glitter, paint and crystals are used as tropes to comment on the emerging affluent-class, along with the ‘bad-tastes’ exhibited through religious ceremonies, homes and the bazaar.
The works also make acerbic commentary on political and social conditions with inside-jokes and symbols while not preaching on a particular stance.
Artist Statement | I, too, am a part of this history | You Selfish Dreamer | Sagar Theatre on Queen's Road
The female body becomes territorialized during war, civic unrest, in the public space and in the work-space; territories traditionally marked as the male domain. While we women step outside, fric-tion/resistance between the genders prevails. Where women’s bodies are violated, damaged and en-croached. The works look at silenced stories, silenced harassment and silenced witnessing that are fearfully not exchanged, becoming coded messages to save face, a cry for help and also to uncover dusted problems. While in conversation and recording my grand-aunt’s Partition experiences, she disclosed harrowing tales that she had silenced herself from for 70 years, where the woman’s body also becomes collateral damage and source of pleasure during communal riots.
