Seher Shah: Imaginary Cartography

Dust as matter that has disintegrated. Air as absence, ethereal apparition. Cities connected by memories submerged in history. A material that intertwines the visible and the imaginary. The artist takes inspiration from a poem by Agha Shahid Ali - The Dacca Gauzes. Words that evoke memories of her maternal family and the cities she lived in, a cartography between the real and the dreamlike that leads Seher Shah to trace lines across the planet, connecting Chittagong to Chennai and Kochi and, across the Arabian Sea, to the port of Karachi. A poem of loss and erasure revealed in line, form and materiality on paper.