Resident Artists
Anita Zehra
Anita Zehra is an intersectional feminist artist and writer in the making. Currently, she plays the role of project coordinator at the Fearless Collective. Anita is an alumnus of Habib University, Crea Feminist leadership institute, and of the SI Writing program, University of Iowa. Her work has been exhibited in APRIA Journal, Cinema73, Karachi and Ganga Jumuna Market, Delhi. When Anita is not working, you can find her sauntering streets of Karachi and musing on top of trees. She would love to be your friend.
Shabbir Mohammed
Shabbir Mohammed is a writer and a visual artist with a degree in Communication and Design. He is a multimedia artist who works in video, photography, animation and illustration to tell stories. His written works have been published in the Arzu Anthology which was released and published at the Karachi Literature Festival. Shabbir is also fascinated with the hidden fantastical stories hidden everywhere in Karachi.
Arsalan Nasir
UMISSA Scholar, Arsalan Nasir obtained his Master!s Degree in Art & Design Studies, from Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, in 2017. He received his BFA (with Distinction) from the University of Karachi in 2013. As a practicing Visual Artist, he has exhibited his work in several exhibitions as well as solo presentations, the most recent of which was at VASL Association!s Museum of Abandoned Spaces: “Dreams on Sale”. Nasir won the Emerging Artist Prize at the Karachi Biennale 2019. His residencies include IRL: In Real Life at VM Art Gallery, Social Sculpture at VASL in collaboration with Heinrich Boll Stiftung, Indigenous Responses at Elixir School in collaboration with DOVS (Karachi University), and Incubator at Sanat Initiative. Currently, he teaches as an Assistant Professor at Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture. His work centers on New Media forms of art, exploring ideas of interactive art, unconventional installations, and art!s role in in the public arena, which initiate conversations of social, cultural and environmental concerns.
Suneela Ahmed
Suneela Ahmed is an architect, urbanist and an academic based in Karachi. Her interests lie in analyzing the everyday adaptations of architectural and urban spaces at the grass root level by locals of the global south. She also dwells into the mitigation processes through the challenges of globalization, localization and informalization which gives shape to everyday spaces within an urban setting and how these processes form local and global identities. She has written various research papers, book chapters, newspaper articles and presented in conferences around these issues/ themes/ ideas. Her first solo authorship was published in October 2022 entitled “Urban Architecture and Local Spaces in Pakistan’ by Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.
Afreen Seher
Afreen Seher is a theatre practitioner, creative writer, and a digital media professional with a focus on South Asian performing arts, theatre, film, television, and pop culture. Afreen graduated with highest honors in theatre from Smith College (USA), where she wrote and directed several plays. During her master’s at film school, she made documentaries on theatre and performance, and her film “Aman Khel” was based on women doing theatre in Karachi, which premiered at the Women of Colour Conference in 2018 held in the United States. Her original play “Safar” received the Best Play Award at the Karachi Theatre Festival (2020). She is an assistant professor at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. Afreen is a recipient of the Ruth Dietrich Tuttle Prize for Peace and International Relations, and the Fulbright ETA Grant.
Vajdaan Shah
Vajdaan Shah is a theatre arts graduate of the National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA), Karachi, and is also a trained contemporary dancer from Leggere Strutture’s Art Factory International, Bologna, Italy. His leading projects as an actor include Shehriyar in “Aik Hazaar Aur Aik Thi Raatein” (2023) with Tehrik-i-Niswan (1001 Arabian Nights) and Sindhi feature film, “Indus Echoes,” as well as “In Flames” (premiered at Director’s Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival, 2023). He is a visiting faculty member at NAPA, Denning Law College, and the Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi, where he works as a teaching artist and creative movement instructor.