Contributors

Aasim Akhtar, an alumnus of the National College of Arts, Lahore, is an Islamabad-based freelance art critic, photojournalist and curator. He has written extensively on the arts and culture, both for local and international publications. He contributes regularly to publications such as Libas (Pakistan) and International Ceramic Review (Australia), among others. He has authored a book on Indus Kohistan, and is currently writing his third book A Feast of Threads.
   
Prof. Abul Mansur is a professor of Art History at University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. He has authored and co-authored books on art and related issues in Bengali and English and has published numerous articles in international journals since1984. He has also written monographs for many renowned artists and art exhibitions in Bangladesh and abroad. Institutions in several countries, including Pakistan, have invited him to present papers, curate shows, and conduct workshops.

Adnan Madani is a Karachi born writer and artist. He has a degree in Visual Culture from Goldsmiths College, London. His research interests include the philosophy of language and ideas of cosmopolitanism in contemporary art, as seen through the works of Wittgenstein and Derrida.  

Ahmed Fouad Selim is Director General of the Museum of Modern Art, Cairo, Egypt, since 2005. His first one-man show was held in 1963, after which he participated in some forty-two solo shows and more than hundred group exhibitions in Egypt and other countries. He is the President of the Egypt section for the International Art Critics Association (AICA) and the Director General, Center of Art (Akhnaton Galleries).

Awarded the Chevalier L'Ordre des Art by the French government in 1986 and an Arts Medal from the Queen of Denmark, he has been the Commissioner and curator for Egypt's pavilions at the INT Biennale of Paris in 1980, Sao Paulo in 1987, and Venice in 1993 and 2001. He has published three books on art and his works are in collections at all Egyptian museums, many museums in the Arab world, and at a number of galleries in Europe, and the USA.

Ali Haider took up photography a few years ago as a hobby which opened a new world and a new kind of seeing through the narrow rectangle of the viewfinder. His work has always emphasized natural light.
He hopes to hold an exhibition of his photographs soon.
   
Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an artist, art writer, and series editor of the much talked about Dances of India series of seven books on all the classical Indian dance forms. She shares a ringside view of the sometimes tough and lonely and sometimes rewarding journey of performers and gurus through their chosen profession – dance. In her writing career on the arts spanning nearly 26 years, she has documented an entire generation of artists who have shaped the artistic heritage of the country in the last quarter of the century – captured in two books – A Moment in Time and Pathfinders: Artistes of One World. She is India’s first trained art curator, having trained at the Goldsmiths College, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.

Amean J was born in Karachi in 1974. He graduated with a BFA in Photography from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 1997, and later completed his MFA in Media, Culture & Technology from the University of Luton, UK, in 2005. He is an established name in fashion photography, but his passion remains art photography which he exhibits regularly in galleries. Amean J works out of his studio, 18% grey based in Karachi.

Arif Hasan is an architect and planning consultant in private practice in Karachi. He is the author of a large number of books and publications on planning and development, including the much acclaimed Understanding Karachi – Planning and Reform for the Future (City Press, 1999). He is Chairman of the Orangi Pilot Project – Research and Training Institute and the Urban Resource Centre in Karachi. He is also a visiting professor at the NED University.

Dr. Ashrafi S. Bhagat is Head of the Department of Fine Arts, Stella Maris College, Chennai, India. Her doctoral thesis was on the ‘Madras Art Movement.’ She has published research articles in books and journals, and written exhibition catalogues for artists. She freelances for India’s national daily- The Hindu.

Asiya Sadiq has a Masters in Architecture from KULeuven, Belgium. An Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture and Planning, NED, University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, she is also involved in practice and research of architecture, urban planning and urban design issues, both nationally and internationally.

Asma Husain is a Master of Architecture candidate at Rice University, USA. She has a B.A. from Colby College, USA, with a major in Art (Sculpture). Her writings on art, architecture and social issues have been published in Dawn, Aware, Colby Museum of Art Collections Catalogue and NuktaArt. As Watson Fellow, she spent six months in Rio de Janeiro in 2005-2006 studying the favelas - low cost housing in Brazil - from an architectural standpoint, and six months in India for a similar research. During summer of 2008, she worked at the Acconci Studio in New York, run by the renowned conceptual artist and architect Vito Acconci.

Atteqa Ali is a doctoral candidate in the Art History Department of The University of Texas at Austin. She is completing her dissertation that examines the genesis of socio-political art made in Pakistan today. It looks at the colonial history of South Asia and traces the last two decades of art making in the nation. 

Ayesha Vellani is a freelance photographer and photojournalist with a National Diploma in Art and Design from North Essex School of Art and Design, UK, and a B.A. in Visual Art and Media from DeMontfort University, UK. She also attended the Nantes Ecole des Beaux Arts, France for an ERASMUS exchange. She has worked with IUCN (the World Conservation Union), Karachi as its Communications Consultant; the IED (Institute for Educational Development), Karachi, as Media Consultant, and with WWF-Nature. Ayesha has been a visiting faculty at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi and Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. She has received awards from the Photographic Society of Karachi and from the New York Times Magazine for outstanding achievement at the Eddie Adams workshop on Photojournalism held in New York, USA.

Ayub Baloch is a scholar on Balochi culture based in Quetta.

Batool Mahmood is a writer and author of a children’s picture book on mime. She has written on art and culture for both local and foreign publications, including Dawn and the Asian Wall Street Journal. She has also worked as a television reporter.

Catharina Kajander ceramic artist from Helsinki, Finland, studies at the Industrial Art Institute and then taught there until 1968 as Assistant to Prof. Kyllikki Salmenhaara. She worked at a drainpipe factory in Finland from 1966-71, and during the same time she held her first individual exhibition in Helsinki, receiving the State Art and design prize for a large terracotta sculpture. She has worked in Tanzania and the Republic of Guinea in Africa, as a ceramic expert. In 2005, Kajander taught at the St. Petersburg University. She has held 28 individual exhibitions in Finland and has participated in several group exhibitions and ceramic symposiums in Finland and other countries.

Christine Bruckbauer is an independent art writer, curator and lecturer, focusing on contemporary art practices in South Asia, Middle East and North Africa. She studied Art History and Art Teaching at University Graz in Austria, and later, for two years she studied Cultural Management at University Linz, Austria. She has lived in Pakistan from 2002 – 2006. She is currently based in Tunis, Tunisia.

Claire Eckert has a masters of Art History from York University, Toronto and a Bachelor of Fine arts from Queen’s University, Kingston. She is currently a Curatorial Assistant at the Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga. In addition to programming activities at the Blackwood, she has been involved in exhibitions and screenings at organizations such as Vtape (Toronto), Gallery Stratford (Stratford) and Modern Fuel (Kingston).

Chuck Wissinger is a prominent American ceramist. He has exhibited extensively in his country and abroad. Presently he is associated with the Texas A&M University at Kingsville as Associate Professor and Co-Chairperson of the Department of Fine Arts.

Chuka Nnabuife is an artist and art critic who lives and works in Africa. He is the Art Editor of Compass newspaper, Lagos, Nigeria.

Dr Deepali Dewan-Cobb is the Curator of South Asian Art at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada. She is an Assistant professor in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Toronto. An Art Historian of South Asian visual culture, she received her PhD from the University of Minnesota, where her dissertation explored early art education and visual culture in 19th-century South Asia. Her current research project is on the history of 19th-century photography in India. She is co-authoring a book on photographer Raja Deen Dayal.

Deepanjana Pal completed her Masters from the University of Warwick and is currently based in Mumbai as the art critic for Time Out Mumbai. She has written about contemporary Indian art for international editions of Time Out, including Time Out London and Time Out Beijing. She also regularly contributes articles for Art India.

Dr Diane Buck currently teaches Expressive Arts at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji islands. Over thirty years ago, an opportunity to teach art in Nigeria evolved into a lengthy connection with the interface between traditional and contemporary art that included work and travel not only in several African countries, but also in Papua New Guinea.

Dominic Sansoni based in Sri Lanka, has been a professional photographer since 1980. His book, Sri Lanka- Colour, was launched in January 2006. He has traveled to over 30 countries and around the island, documenting and photographing all that is of interest to him. He has exhibited in Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, USA, UK and Thailand. He works with Barefoot  in Colombo that runs a bookshop, an art gallery, a garden café and designs and produces hand-woven cotton.

Dorothy Krouskie  has spent 30 years as apart of Toronto’s corporate world. Art is a passion with her. Her diverse art collection includes the work of the First Nations of Canada and Contemporary Art. She has visited a number of galleries around the world.

Dr. Elona Lubyte is a professor of Art History and a respected critic of Contemporary Eastern European Art in her country. She is the curator of Lithuanian contemporary sculpture in the Lithuanian Art Museum since 1987, and has been curating since 1988. Dr. Lubyte contributes to local publications and regularly presents papers at various forums. She is also the President of the National Section of AICA in Lithuania.

Dr. Gulzar Haider is Dean, School of Architecture and Design, Beacon house National University, Lahore. He has been Emiretus Professor of Architecture, Carleton University, Ottowa, Canada where he has lived for many years. Recipient of numerous scholastic awards during his academic career, Dr. Haider was Design Consultant, to eleven different architectural practices in USA and Canada from 1979-2004, and has published several reports, monographs and book chapters.

Huria Kazmi holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts with a major in Painting from College of Art and Design, Punjab University, Lahore. Her articles appear in local magazines and newspapers. She is also working for TV shows, but painting for her is a pivotal practice.

Ian Mc Lean is a leading art critic who has written extensively on Aboriginal Art. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia.

Ilona Selma Yusuf is an art, music, modern literature and photography enthusiast. In 2004, she became the Editor of Alhamra Literary Review, which publishes writings by Pakistani writers, both local and from the Diaspora.

Inayat Husain had his early education in Indore and graduated in Civil Engineering from Aligarh Muslim University, India in 1945. He received a Master’s, also in Civil Engineering, from Tennessee, USA, in 1948, and came to the newly created Pakistan where he has been living since then. He served in Engineering and Techno-administrative appointments, Government of Pakistan, including the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. He also served as Registrar, N.E.D University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi. In 2005, he translated in English a book Indian History - Background and Perspective, originally written in Urdu by Zahid Husain.

Dr Jale Erzen teaches art history, aesthetics, and criticism and other art courses at the Faculty of Architecture, Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey. She is an exhibiting artist and has many publications in Turkey and abroad on modern art, aesthetics in the East, and on Ottoman aesthetics and architecture.

Jasleen Dhamija, author of numerous seminal works on the textile crafts of India, is known internationally as a philosopher of living cultural traditions. Her main speciality is the history of textiles and costumes. She has worked and researched throughout India in developing the handicraft and handloom industries. She has worked in Iran, the Middle East, Central Asia, South East Asia, the Balkans, as well as with 21 countries in Africa. UNESCO has appointed her as President of the Jury of Asian Awards for Creativity in Textiles. She has been awarded Hill Professorship by the University of Minnesota for her work on Textiles. She is also on the faculty of the national Institute of Fashion technology, New Delhi, and has lectured on Textiles at numerous museums in India, Europe, UK, USA, Japan, Australia and South East Asia.

John Holt is a UK based artist/writer. He has taught at Bretton Hall College, University of Leeds. As a writer, he contributes to publications around the world. He is founder of A.I.M. (Artists in Mind), an arts and mental health charity that focuses on art as therapy for the emotionally disturbed. He is extensively involved in South Asian art in England, and a director of Shisha.

Dr. Laura Turney works for the Scottish Executive in the field of Gender Equality. Her interest in arts and equalities relates to her work at the Universities of Leeds and Manchester where she was a research fellow until 2002.

Karin Shankar is from Mumbai, India and currently works as Assistant Editor of The State of the World's Children Report with UNICEF in New York City, USA. She has a Master’s in Public Administration/International Development from Cornell University, New York. An avid art enthusiast, she trained in music and theatre and plans to apply for a doctoral degree in performance studies in the near future.

Kohi Marri is a Pakistani architect and photographer who graduated from the Oxford School of Architecture (Brookes University), UK. He later took courses in film-making and animation to develop skills and expand the scope of his work. Starting a freelance design company while studying, he collaborated with musicians, dancers and painters on various projects, gaining insight, and developing different skills. This has given him a unique perspective which permeates through his projects.

Koulsy Lamko was born in Chad, in 1959. A poet, playwright, novelist, author of scripts and actor, he has a PhD in arts, language and French literature. His work has been presented by theater companies in África, Europe and Canada. Promoter of the Theater of the Community in Burkina Faso, he was one of the founders of the International Festival of Theatre for Development. He founded and directed the Center for the Arts and the Theater in the National University of Rwanda, where he has also taught theater and creative writing. He produced a Poetry CD in 1997 and has numerous publications to his credit. Presently he lives and teaches in Mexico City, Mexico.

Kristine Michael is a ceramic artist, curator and researcher based in New Delhi, India. Though trained as a tableware designer and potter, her present work is based on organic forms in installations. She recently exhibited and lectured at the 4th World Ceramics Biennale, Korea. She is a working group member of KHOJ International Artists Association, New Delhi. In 2006, she participated and presented a paper at the ASNA Clay Triennial, Karachi.

Kym Pruesse (1936–2009) was a writer, artist, curator, and teacher. She was an Associate Professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Canada and was active in the area of art and activism for many years. Kym passed away in Toronto after a brief illness.

Laila Mehreen Rahman is a painter and printmaker. She is an Associate Professor of Fine Arts at the National College of Arts, Lahore. She holds a Master’s in Printmaking from the Slade School of Fine Art, London and Advanced Diploma in Painting from St. Martin's College of Art and Design, London. Her work is in permanent collections of the House of Commons Collection, London and in the V&A Museum, as well as the Bradford Art Galleries, UK. She has contributed papers to various seminars and is also a freelance writer for local publications.   

Dr. Leon Wainwright, of Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, has a background of teaching and research in Art History and Visual Studies. He received a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, on the topic of contemporary art and artists of many Diasporas- African, Asian and Caribbean- living in Britain. His current work deals with the Caribbean, specifically Trinidad and Guyana, where he is conducting long-term field work in preparation for a book on art and agency in the region. He has several publications to his credit, including Shades of Black, Assembling the 80’s, Black Art in Postwar Britain (2004) and Visual Culture in Britain at the End of Empire (2005).

Maheen A. Rashdi is a writer/columnist who has been with the Dawn newspaper for 15 years, covering social issues, politics, human rights issues, art and entertainment. She has edited four weekly magazines at Dawn, including the art fortnightly, Gallery.  She has also worked with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) training on conflict reporting and gender sensitive reporting. She currently lives in Toronto where she works as a columnist with the Sun Media.

Maria A is a practicing architect who stumbled into architectural journalism by chance. She is a regular critic of architecture and an editor with A+I and Canadian Architect. She is a visiting faculty of architecture departments of the Art Institute of Toronto, the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture and the NED University, Karachi. A travel enthusiast, she has gone around the world and is documenting her experiences in a travelogue.

Maria Amelia Bulhoes is the Head of History, Theory and Art Criticism of Ar in the Visual Arts Dept. of the Federal University of Rio Grande Do Sul in Brazil. She is the author of several monographs and contributes regularly to local publications.

Marie- Noelle Chatelain lives in Toronto. She majored in painting and art history from l’Ecole des Arts Appliques in Paris, and studies etching and art history in Kassel, Germany. She used photographyas a means for documentation; later this approach evolved into a more abstract and sculptural adaptation of the medium. Nota (merging Noelle and Tamara) is the collaboration between mother and daughter and produces photo-based material which may be printed in the darkroom then transformed into objects printed by exposing handmade papers / fabrics to the sun as Cyanotype, or computer manipulated images.

Dr. Maureen Korp is a Canadian art historian, writer, poet and curator.  She has written three books, many scholarly articles, and contributed to a number of radio, film and television documentaries on the inter-relationship of art and religions.  In 1995-96 she was a visiting professor in the History faculty at the University of Bucharest, Romania. Dr. Korp has returned three times since to Romania.  She is currently working on a cross-cultural study of 20th century war memorials. Dr. Korp is an Associate Professor of History of Art, Architecture, and Design at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, Pakistan. 

Dr. Michael Boivin, is a Research Fellow at the centre for South Asian Studies, School of Advanced Study of Social Sciences, University of Paris. He is doing field work on the identity making of Muslim communities in the 19th and 20th centuries in South Asia. He is currently conducting research on the cultural expressions of devotion in the Pakistani society, involving literature, music and iconography.

Mohsin S. Jaffri, is writer, journalist and an art critic based in Karachi. He is presently working as a senior editor for an English newspaper, The News. He is the author of The Other Half, Discrimination Against Women, a well received book in literary circles in Pakistan. He is also editor, Business & Finance, Investors B&F and Tapestry, at The News.

Mukhtar Husain is a practicing architect based in Karachi, Pakistan who earned his B. Arch and M. Arch. Degrees from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He was the Chief Architect for the new terminal building at Jinnah International Airport, Karachi (1985-1992) and Technical Reviewer for two cycles for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1995 and 1996). He has been teaching, and is a frequent contributor to local and international journals. He is the author of a book, ‘100 + 1 Pakistani Architects and their own Homes’, published in 2006.

Murad Khan Mumtaz graduated from the NCA, Lahore in 2003 with a BFA degree in miniature painting. He has contributed for the weekly Friday Times since 1999, and taught miniature painting to B.A students at the College of Traditional Islamic Arts in Jordan, and later at Beacon House National University, as a visiting lecturer. He is currently pursuing a career as an artist and resides in Lahore.

Mustafa Zaman is Dhaka based art critic from Bangladesh.

Nadia Kurd is an emerging artist and writer. Her work has been published in FUSE Magazine, Critical Times, MIX Magazine and Proteus: A Journal of Ideas as well as various exhibition catalogues. Her interests focus on contemporary urban spaces and architecture and the Muslim diaspora in North America. Nadia has a B.F.A. from the University of Ottawa and a Masters of Art History from York University. Formerly the Programming Coordinator for SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Collective), Nadia is currently pursuing her PhD at McGill University.

Nafisa Rizvi a writer and art collector, is a post graduate from UCLA in advertising, and is based in Karachi. She has worked as a copywriter for The Circuit (Pvt.) Ltd, an advertising agency, for eighteen years; as Coordinator, Communication Design Department at Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture for three years; as an art writer, she has been contributing articles and reviews in various local magazines, including the art pages of monthly Herald.

Nameera Ahmed is a visual artist, graphic designer and filmmaker and one of the founding members of MAUJ. She teaches at the Karachi University and is a digital reviewer for Leonardo Reviews. She received her Master's degree from Istanbul, focusing on documentary filmmaking. Besides short experimental and essay-films, the films to her credit include: Give me your love (2007), a documentary film exploring the music of the whirling dervishes, and Reflections in the mirror (2008) a short film inquiring into the state of women's empowerment in urban Pakistan.

Nancy Adajania is a cultural theorist, art critic and film-maker, based in Bombay. She was educated in political science, social communications media and film. She has been Chief Editor of the visual-arts journal, Art India. She has written and lectured extensively on the arts, especially new media, in relation to post-colonial politics and the cultural effects of globalization, over the last decade.

Naz Ikramullah is a senior Pakistani visual artist based in Ottawa, Canada. She studied art at the Byam Shaw School, and later lithography at the Slade School in London. She has had a long career as an educator at Ottawa School of Art. Her paintings and prints are mostly about memories, and some of them have political undertones. Her works are displayed in many international collections.

Nico Wheadon is a New York-based curator, artist and writer primarily engaged with the intersections of performance, new media and experimental writing. Her pursuits explore the cultural roles of visual production and challenge conventional modes of representation and perception. Wheadon is a graduate of Brown University’s Art-Semiotics department and the Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and currently serves as Associate Curator at Rush Arts Gallery in New York, NY.

Nusra Latif Qureshi is a practicing miniature artist. She did her MFA from Victoria College of Arts, Melbourne, Australia, where she is presently based. She has exhibited her work, among other countries, in Australia, India, Singapore, USA and Pakistan.

Qamar Bharoocha Bana –a freelance photographer- was born in Mumbai and grew up in the sub-continent. She enjoys documenting people, buildings, interiors, traditional events/ artifacts and sometimes landscapes too. She had her first solo exhibition at the Dante Alighieri, Karachi, in March 2005. In December 2004 she participated in the SAARC photo exhibition in Delhi alongside 30 other professionals. She has to her credit a couple of group shows in Nairobi, Kenya, where she lived for over four years. Currently living in Karachi, she travels when she can.

Pamela Rogers, an archaeologist by training, has studied in Canada and in the UK. She has worked as a Consultant for UNESCO, and in 2003 her first assignment in Pakistan was to develop master plans for the Shahi Qila –the Mughal Fort and the Shalimar Gardens, in Lahore, which included conservation management and tourism potential. She is Program Director of the Center of Cultural Heritage, Conservation and Management at the National College of Arts.

Rasheed Areen is a globally acclaimed art critic and founding editor of an internationally accomplished theoretical art journal Third Text, published from London by Routledge. He is also a practicing artist and his work has been exhibited at prestigious locations around the world.

Rifky Effendi was born in Jakarta, and trained as a ceramic artist at the Fine Arts and Design Department of the Technology Institute of Bandung. Based in Jakarta since 1997, he has curated and co-curated several exhibitions and has been a freelance contributor for national newspapers and magazines. Since 2001 he has contributed to Art Asia Pacific. He established and directed the first Bandung Biennale in 2001. In 2004 he collaborated with Indonesian architects and artists for the project Imagining Jakarta sponsored by Goethe-Institu, Jakarta. Effendi worked with Greg Burke on the exhibition Trans Indonesia: Scoping Culture in Contemporary Indonesian Art at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth, New Zealand. He is a fellow of the Asia Cultural Council (ACC).

Rita Sodha did her doctoral thesis on the Sursagar Paintings of the Mewar School from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India. She is a freelance writer. Presently teaching in the Department of Art History and Aesthetics, Faculty of Fine arts, Vadodaro, her publications include cataloguing Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings from the Gaekwad collection (Vadodaro) writings on Pushti marg- the cult of  Vallabhacharya and related visual culture, case of refashioning authority, resultant works of art and their semantics. Her area of research is the study of text-painting relationship in miniature paintings.

Rob van Kranenburg (1964) is an innovation and media theorist involved with negotiability strategies of new technologies and artistic practice, predominantly ubicomp and rfid (radio frequency identification), the relationship between the formal and informal in cultural and economic policy, and the requirements for a sustainable cultural economy. He taught media theory at Post St Joost (MA Autonomous Art), HKU EMMA (MA Interaction Design), Medialab Amsterdam (teamcoach) and Technical University Eindhoven, Industrial Design. As a freelancer Rob has worked for and with Mediamatic, TEKS Trondheim, JISC, CTI Patras, Open University Netherlands, City of Breda, Institute of Network Cultures. He currently works as Head of Programme at Waag Society. He is a co-founder of Bricolabs and Council.

Rukhsana David is a Lahore-based artist and educator. Presently she is the Head of the Dept. of Fine Arts at Kinnaird College, Lahore. She was married to the renowned Pakistani artist, late Colin David.

Rustam Khan is Assistant Director, Department of Archaeology, based at the Lahore Fort. He is a PhD student at the Center of Cultural Heritage, Conservation and Management at the National College of Arts.

R.W. Lawrence is a professor in the Philosophy and Religion Department at Albertus Magnus College.  He received his M.Div at Princeton Theological Seminary (1995) and went on to complete a Ph.D in Philosophical Theology at the University of Notre Dame in January 2006.  His dissertation, entitled John Milbank and the Creation of Truth: Dialectical Readings, argued for the inherently religious nature of political structures while, through its method, attempting to re-establish the importance of the dialectical tradition for philosophical theology. His research focuses on the intersection of theology, philosophy and theory especially as it exists in the Continental tradition in so far as that embraces philosophers and theologians both from phenomenological and (post-) Marxist backgrounds.

Saira Dar has been working as an artist since 1993 and has explored a wide variety of mediums. She has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group shows and has expressed herself on a diverse range of themes. She has also been writing art reviews for the daily Dawn on a regular basis since 1999. She is currently Head of the Art Department at Aitchison College, Lahore.

Dr. Salman Ahmad is the founder of Sadequain Foundation, registered in San Diego, California, U.S.A. The Foundation was established to discover, preserve, and promote the artworks of Pakistan’s foremost artist, Sadequain, and has organized exhibitions of Sadequain's art and lectures at Stanford University, University of Illinois, and Pakistan Embassy in Washington D.C. The Foundation guides college students in their research on Sadequain, including a Master's Thesis on Sadequain at California University in Los Angeles. A series of books and comprehensive catalogs of Sadequain's works are planned in future. Dr. Salman Ahmad is currently a consultant to telecommunications companies.

Samina Asif Shah is an art critic based in Lahore, Pakistan. Freelancing under the name of ‘Bibigul’ she contributes to Gallery (daily Dawn) and other periodicals. She is pursuing a doctorate in History of Art from the Punjab University.

Sangeeta Thapa is a curator and art promoter from Nepal. As the director of the Siddhartha Gallery in Kathmandu, she has curated shows abroad. She is a member of Nepal Heritage Society and contributes art writings to VOW magazine, Nepal.

Sara Mehmood grew up in Wales and has lived in Pakistan since 1986. Her main interests are art and literature and her articles and book reviews appear regularly in daily Dawn newspaper and quarterly Libas magazine. She works in Islamabad as a trainer/ examiner with British Council, Pakistan. 

Prof. Sevim Cizer is a practicing ceramist who heads the Ceramic Department that she founded some years ago at Dokuz Eylul University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Izmir, Turkey. She has held five solo exhibitions and has participated in several national and international exhibitions, biennales, workshops and conferences, including shows in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Greece, Albania, USA, Hungary, Egypt, Macedonia, Japan, Argentina, Latvia, Uzbekistan and China. Her research papers on special historical techniques like ‘Luster’s Techniques’ and ‘Terra Sigillata’ have been published. She has also been a jury member in several national and international organizations.

Shazia Zuberi did her Bachelor’s degree in Economics with a minor in Studio Arts from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, USA in 1992.  Ever since her graduation, she has combined her development work with her art, specifically focusing on women’s rights.  She has developed a language in clay that reflects women's rights issues pertaining to their sexuality, the ability to control their lives, make decisions which impact their bodies, etc. and has held several solo and group shows. Over the years she has written art reviews for Newsline and NuktaArt magazines in a freelance capacity. She is currently living and working in London, UK. 

Sheherbano Hussain is an artist and art writer, who has also been involved in curating art shows. She was on the curatorial committee of the The Takhti Exhibition in 2001, and is co-curating an exhibition on two interrelated shows on calligraphy and figurative form in early 2006. She graduated from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in 1995.

Simone Wille is a free-lance journalist and art critic. She completed her MPhil-Cum laude- in Contemporary Art in Pakistan: A Balance of Old and New, and is a Phd. Candidate at the University of Vienna, researching on Contemporary Art from Pakistan: A continual Process of Anticipated Futures and Reconstructed Pasts.

Sohail Amir Ali Bawani has a Post Graduate Diploma in Islamic Studies and Humanities from the Shia Ismaili Tariqah and Religious Education Board for Pakistan (TREB). He has a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the University of Karachi and a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Al-Khair University. His major interest and objective is to explore communities and the role of sacred spaces in the devotional life of the Sindhi people.

Sumbul Khan studied for her Master’s at Tufts University in the History of Islamic Art. Since then she has taught Undergraduate Art History at Framingham State College, the Textile Institute of Pakistan and the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. Her research interests include gender and identity politics in 16th century Mughal manuscripts and contemporary art from post-colonial countries. She has also worked as Assistant Curator at the State Bank of Pakistan Museum and Art Gallery in Karachi.

Tapu Javeri is a Karachi based photographer. He started his career as a photojournalist with Dawn and later took up fashion photography and went on to work with prestigious publications like Libas and Herald. As the photo-editor of Xtra, Tapu integrated innovative photography into publishing design. His book ‘I Voyeur’, based on black and white portraits of newsmakers from Pakistan was published in 2004. His second book is in the pipeline. Tapu has curated exhibitions of photography and been a part of shows in Pakistan and abroad. He is also an artist. His experimental mixed media painting that combines photography in a signature style has been a part of many shows since 1984.

Vincent Rosenblatt is a French photographer living and working in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is founder of the organization Olhares do Marro, which is set up in three of Rio’s largest favelas and provides interested youths with photography equipment and training. Their photographs show the slums as witnessed by them, not as seen by the media, thus challenging popular opinions. It also provides them with opportunities of employment and sustainable development. They have already exhibited in various international events such as the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie of Arles(France), and the Art Basel / Miami Beach International Art Show, among others.

Dr. Wijdan Ali is an art historian, painter, art curator and academic. She received her Phd. In Islamic Art from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and is the founder and president  of the  Royal Society of Fine Arts that established the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts in Amman. Since 2002, she has been the founder and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Jordan and has published several books and papers on classical and contemporary Islamic art.

Xhingyu Chen is a contemporary art specialist and writer based in Shanghai, China, where she has been involved in the art world for seven years. She was raised in New York City and attended Middlebury College in Vermont, where she studied Fine Arts and Chinese. She is a regular contributor to Art Asia Pacific, Sculpture Magazine, and ArtInfo. In addition to her journalistic work, she organizes personalized tours in Shanghai and Beijing focusing on contemporary art and culture. Xhingyu Chen is currently working on a book on Chinese contemporary art, to be published in 2010.

Zehra Zaidi is a corporate lawyer based in Pakistan and the UK. However, she writes extensively and also deals in art, specializing in work from the Islamic world and the Middle East.

M. Zulfiqar Ali is founder and Director of the Children’s Museum for Peace and Human Rights (CMPHR, formerly Human Rights Education Programme) and Member, Executive Committee of the International Network of Museums for Peace. He is undertaking doctoral research at the Institute of Education, University of London, regarding the political economy and policy sociology of education in Pakistan since 1972.