Urdu Worlds

A contemporary art exhibition dedicated to the Urdu language: accoridng to Ishara, “the show explores how language provides the tools with which we create and shape our internal ‘worlds’. Words, rather than simply describing our surroundings, give rise to our private lived experiences and shared cultural understandings”.

Curated by Hammad Nasar, the exhibition is a visual conversation around language between Ali Kazim and Zarina (it’s also the first comprehensive presentation of Kazim’s works in the GCC). Born in Aligarh, India, Zarina weaves Urdu script, proverbs and poetry into her delicate print works; Ali Kazim, a multimedia artist based in Lahore, Pakistan, grounds his ‘Urdu world’ in a sense of place while exhibiting an eclecticism of influences that reflects the composite and layered history of the language.

To 31 May.

Above: Ali Kazim, Untitled (Votive Objects) (2022). Below: Zarina, Ten woodcuts by Zarina: based on Urdu proverbs (1991)