Koel Gallery

16/05/2025

KOEL Gallery is currently seeking an experienced Art Gallery Manager to lead the gallery operations and contribute to our artistic vision. If you have a passion for the arts and strong managerial skills, we invite you to apply at : [email protected].

Location: Karachi, Clifton
Job type: Full time

07/12/2024

12/10/2024

Metal - Elemental Resonance curated by Nurayah Sheikh Nabi is the first of a series of five exhibitions that explore materiality: Metal, Clay, Stone, Textile and Paper.

A fantastic line up of artists and a fabulous collection of works explore a deep connection between metal and the human experience - its symbolic, physical, and transformative nature as a hard yet malleable material that has shaped our practical existence and spiritual understanding.

Ancient civilizations saw iron as a divine gift from the heavens; a bridge between the realms. In shaping meteorite iron into modern metalworking, metal has long connected humanity to, both the earth and the cosmos.

A play with dualities—solid and fluid, dark and light, passive and active, matter and spirit—grounding us to the earth while pointing toward the infinite. Metal transformation from raw ore to refined form mirrors a quest for transmutation, like turning lead into gold or melting and beating a material to perfection and beauty, in a pursuit of knowledge and balance.

The show celebrates metal’s alchemical journey through the perspectives of our bazaars, the maker and the seller, our craftspeople, and contemporary visual artists. It reveals a multifaceted linkage of the ancient and the present—inviting reflection through stories of making, practical tools, household utensils, body ornaments and individual works of expression.

Join the curator and artists for the Opening at 4 pm on Tuesday 15th October at KOEL Gallery. The exhibition continues till November 10, 2024

16/09/2024

During the residency Ecologies of Diversity: Plants, Art & Film, a workshop was initiated by Sana Bilgrami (ENU) - curator, Kerstin Stutterheim (ENU) and Olwen Grace (RGBE) with the intent to discover the bio-diversity of plants at Gumchi Baagh.
 
From the nearby school for girls, Azm e Nau, 11 girls attended the workshop at Gumchi Baagh. They were accompanied by their Principal Rubina Akhtar, and artist Nafisa Athar, who graciously supported the curator in organising the event.
 
To begin with, the students were introduced to the role and importance of biodiversity and the role herbariums play, their broad activities as collecting, specifications, preservation, research and archive of plant specimens, that allows them to monitor and respond to changes caused by catastrophes of all kinds due to climate change or human impact on nature. Noorjehan Bilgrami spoke about her deep connection to Gumchi Baagh and shared her experience of how the garden has been evolving. She emphasised the significance of plants in our lives, our relationship with plants as provider of food, medicine and the direct impact on our environment.
Kerstin Stutterheim and Sara Asam led the students in one group each through a series of activities – to explore the garden, to collect a small range of selected plants that interested them and/or are relevant for the area. The gardeners of Gumchie Baargh, Mohammad Akhlaq and Chowdhry Akmal, shared their deep knowledge of the indigenous and cultivated plant species in the garden with the students, who also discussed their special knowledge about the use of some of these plants with the group. 
After the collection, selected plant cuttings were arranged for drying to prepare as specimens, with those interested in this activity. Other participants were keen to study and draw plants from life. The workshop concluded with finished and semi-finished artwork, a pile of plants to dry in the sun, and some of the plant cuttings as take away for each student for continuing with art work.

Images (c) Sara Aslam, (c) Kerstin Stutterheim

14/09/2024

What will life be in 100 years from now?
Sara Aslam, driven by this simple, crucial question formed a time capsule using organic materials - soil and clay. This vessel holds fragments of information and plant specimens from the past and present, meant for future generations.

Images (c) Sara Aslam, (c) Kerstin Stutterheim

13/09/2024

Following a period of online exchange between mentor Kerstin Stutterheim and artist, Sara Aslam forthe residency, Sara shared her ideas for her work at Gumchi Baagh.
Together, they explored the garden to decide thededicated areas of interest for the documentary film. In the garden they discovered that wildflowers, grass, herbs, wild vegetables and fruits coexist with cultivated plants.
As with any project, one needs to get familiar with the place, light and other conditions which impacts on the quality of filming.
They then began recording around the pond.

Images (c) Sara Aslam, (c) Kerstin Stutterheim

12/09/2024

Ecologies of Diversity: Plants, Art, Film, visual artist residency with Sara Aslam, has started on Gumchi Bagh in Tumair, Islamabad.
 
Sara Aslam is a visual artist and Asst Professor at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. Her creative practice revolves around an expanded notion of home as a space-in-progress and is often explored through an ecological perspective.
 
Ecologies of Diversity: Plants, Art, Film is a collaboration between Koel Gallery (project lead), Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), and Edinburgh Napier University’s School of Arts and Creative Industries (ENU SACI), funded by British Council Pakistan. This project is curated by Sana Bilgrami, an award-winning filmmaker and lecturer at ENU SACI.
 
Kerstin Stutterheim, photographer, visual artist, internationally awarded documentary filmmaker and Professor of Creative Practice at ENU SACI, is mentoring Sara Aslam to develop herpractice using poetic and experimental documentary film.
 
The project will map the indigenous and cultivated plant diversity at ‘Gumchi Bagh’, artistically and cinematically exploring the conservation of plants and their associated cultural heritage in the face of environmental and cultural change.
 
Using collections of South Asian plants and botanical illustrations at RBGE, and artistic-research film-practice expertise from ENU SACI, we offer a rich programme of mentoring, collaboration and outreach, embedding the resident-artist’s practice in international and interdisciplinary knowledge exchange.
 
The second part of the physical residency will take place at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in October.
The residency will culminate in exhibitions, screenings and talks at Koel Gallery and RBGE.
A catalogue of the work will also be published and printed.
 
Images (c) Sara Aslam, (c) Kerstin Stutterheim

12/09/2024

Sara Aslam is a visual artist and Asst Professor at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. Her creative practice revolves around an expanded notion of home as a space-in-progress and is often explored through an ecological perspective.
 
Ecologies of Diversity: Plants, Art, Film is a collaboration between Koel Gallery (project lead), Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), and Edinburgh Napier University’s School of Arts and Creative Industries (ENU SACI), funded by British Council Pakistan. This project is curated by Sana Bilgrami, an award-winning filmmaker and lecturer at ENU SACI.
 
Kerstin Stutterheim, photographer, visual artist, internationally awarded documentary filmmaker and Professor of Creative Practice at ENU SACI, is mentoring Sara Aslam to develop herpractice using poetic and experimental documentary film.
 
The project will map the indigenous and cultivated plant diversity at ‘Gumchi Bagh’, artistically and cinematically exploring the conservation of plants and their associated cultural heritage in the face of environmental and cultural change.
 
Using collections of South Asian plants and botanical illustrations at RBGE, and artistic-research film-practice expertise from ENU SACI, we offer a rich programme of mentoring, collaboration and outreach, embedding the resident-artist’s practice in international and interdisciplinary knowledge exchange.
 
The second part of the physical residency will take place at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in October.
The residency will culminate in exhibitions, screenings and talks at Koel Gallery and RBGE.
A catalogue of the work will also be published and printed.




bilgrami

04/09/2024

From the opening of
SISTER SING A SONG

Shanzay and Lauren have been working experimentally through visual, aural and written exchanges to examine personal stories and the cultural and political realms that shape them.
Brought together through a British Council project and further funded by Wales Arts International, they have been learning from each other and what happens as they travel between and across their countries; Shanzay visited Wales in 2023 and Lauren is currently in Pakistan to explore and create.


subzwari

02/09/2024

SISTER SING A SONG

KOEL Gallery invites you to an informal open studio to witness the recent collaborative explorations in Hunza by LAUREN HECKLER (Wales, UK) and SHANZAY SUBZWARI (Karachi, Pakistan).

The Artists welcome you for your insight, conversation, and your critical responses to their developing video art.

Shanzay and Lauren have been working experimentally through visual, aural and written exchanges to examine personal stories and the cultural and political realms that shape them.
Brought together through a British Council project and further funded by Wales Arts International, they have been learning from each other and what happens as they travel between and across their countries; Shanzay visited Wales in 2023 and Lauren is currently in Pakistan to explore and create.