Murree Museum Residency

The residency took place at Murree, a colonial-era Hill-Station in Northen Punjab, Pakistan. Despite its greenery and avid rainfall, Murree suffers from the adverse affects of hyper-tourism and water for domestic use and consumption is rare and expensive. Systems of storing water such as overhead tanks, wells, pipes, large blue containers and buckets are frequent visuals. 

My time in Murree was spent documenting colonial-era homes, the burnt Murree Brewery distillery and old convent schools from the Hill-Station’s missionary era. These semi-abandoned structures reminded me of the evaporating culture of living in homes in Karachi and comparing the challenges in adapting to depleting resources and an industrial ‘accessible’ way of living. Parts of the research culminated in The Book Project, displayed at AAN Art Space and Museum:

“Because of its unique arboreal and semi-rural environment, (the residency) has given artists the get-away from artistic hubs that they assimilate in. This shift has given one freedom for experimentation as well as failure. Room for failure is an important course of action to develop in a studio practice, where churning out ideas leads to clarity for future projects. More importantly, it is essential to show quickness of the works produced during the three week program with the lack of commercial pressures present in the cities.”