Bio 
Seher Naveed (b. 1984) lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan. She was awarded a BFA from the Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture in 2007 and an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London in 2009. She has shown in various local and international exhibitions and is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Fine Art at the Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture. She also initiated an ongoing research project called “Drawing Documents” that looks at various drawing practices as research.
Artist Statement | Cultivating Wastelands
My curiosity lies in temporary barricades and obstructions that are a constant feature in the urban growth of Karachi. Interested in a kind of urban geography I view these barriers as additions, subtractions and alterations to our everyday movement. I see these as super imposed architectural spaces that appear and disappear-slowly becoming part of the everyday banal objects.
Since the past couple of months I have been documenting the gates seen in Karachi’s residential areas. I feel the city’s uncertain security situation reflects in their layered construction, making these gates function more as barriers and defenses in which we protect and barricade ourselves. These new gates of Karachi which are ornamented with iron spikes and barbed wires are not meant to welcome one in and in fact require a password, camera surveillance and credentials.
