Goldsmiths student to represent Pakistan at 2019 Venice Biennale

A project by artist and Goldsmiths, University of London student Naiza Khan has been selected to represent Pakistan this year when the country exhibits at the 134-year-old Venice Biennale for the first time.

Khan’s project Manora Field Notes will immerse the viewer in life upon Manora, a small peninsula near Karachi, Pakistan.

Curated by Zahra Khan, Manora Field Notes engages with archival material, historic myths, conversations with local communities and architecture such as ruins and construction sites, and reflects shifting power dynamics within the landscape.

Naiza Khan is currently studying part-time for an MA in Research Architecture in the Centre for Research Architecture, part of Goldsmiths’ Department of Visual Cultures. She lives and works between the UK and Pakistan where she is a Senior Advisor at the Department of Visual Studies, University of Karachi.

Over the last ten years, Khan has looked at the transformations of sites such as the expanding Karachi harbour and Manora Island and their ecology and habitation. Her practice is built upon a detailed process of research, documentation and mapping-based investigation of the island, looking at how this reshaping reflects wider changes in the Global South.

(Naiza Khan, The Land Itself, 2014. Watercolour)

Dr Susan Schuppli, Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, said:

“Naiza Khan is an accomplished artist-researcher with an international career who has been exploring contemporary logistics as well as the history and colonial legacies of maritime space in Pakistan. She works across installation and video often integrating archival materials with contemporary reflections. Being chosen for the first Pakistan Pavilion is a fantastic achievement and we are all incredibly proud of her.”

The MA Research Architecture examines how architecture can engage with questions of contemporary culture, politics, media, ecology and justice, and questions whether spatial practice can become a form of research.

Former MA Research Architecture student and artist Henry Bradley will assist with video production for Khan’s Venice project.

The Venice Biennale runs from 11 May – 24 November 2019. 

For more information about the Pakistan Pavilion visit pakistaninvenice.com

Find out more about the Centre for Research Architecture and the MA Research Architecture at Goldsmiths