The Paper Trail: Shifting Markets and the Feminine Voice

This video footage and research, follows Zunera Rashid’s process in stages, as her practice was centered around finding materials around Pakistan Chowk, a hub of printed materials and varied paper products. After purchasing these magazines, she brought her materials to the printmaking studios of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture and through collaging, cutting and attaching, she created an individual approach in repurposing some of these forgotten pieces of literature. As investigating markets became a weekly routine, these site visits developed an acquired knowledge and understanding of mapping an integral portion of the city as she learned about which types of printed publications or scrap materials came from Urdu Bazaar, Akhbaar Market and Paper Market. Tracing her thoughts and notes on the differences between the alleyways/markets around Pakistan Chowk, her thesis project resulted in findings about the nature of Urdu magazines such as, khawateen (women) digests as well as recycled packaging materials. Although her source materials came with their own stories and legacies, Zunera found the opportunity to rebuild the publications by ripping through the papers and creating sculpture and relief forms, transforming printed narratives into artworks that rewind and revise our understanding of print, craft and the grey areas between print and form.

Zunera Rashid is an alumni from the graduating class of 2024 at the Department of Fine Art.

Purposeful documentation

The URA urban craft section is a collaborative effort between alumni from the Department of Fine Art alongside current students. This allows students who are in the process of developing their thesis projects to learn, travel and reflect with graduates who have successfully built hybrid projects that were developed with detailed research and project through their talent and skill. Following Zunera in the alleyways of the Akhbaar Market and Urdu Bazaar, current students and soon to be 2025 alumni, Shezil Ahmed and Komal Rehman outlined aspects of Zunera’s work with her paper resources and printmaking techniques in this video. The PDF is an expanded version developed by the URA team to locate Zunera’s work in the wider context of geography, city planning and materials available in Karachi.