The Mittal Institute welcomes two new Visiting Artist Fellows to campus for the start of their eight-week research fellowship at Harvard. The artists, who both hail from Lahore, Pakistan, are Waleed Zafar, an interdisciplinary visual artist and curator and Amra Khan, an interdisciplinary visual artist. The Visiting Artist Fellowship (VAF) is a research-centered experience for mid-career artists from South Asia. Artists spend two months on campus, using the vast resources of Harvard’s intellectual community to enhance their artistic practice.
Waleed shares more about his art in the interview below – read this piece on Amra’s artwork and motivations. Save the date to join them at the Mittal Institute’s Visiting Artist Fellows Art Exhibition on Monday, March 4, where they will share more of their work with our community.
Waleed Zafar
Mittal Institute: Welcome, Waleed! Can you share who you are as an artist?
Waleed Zafar: My artistic practice is based on photographic and archival research. I have exhibited my work locally and internationally at art fairs and group shows including: A River in an Ocean, a collateral of the Lahore Biennale 01. Lahore; Surface 01 at Artbuzz Studios, Delhi; Pakistan at 100 at the World Bank Office, Islamabad; Full Circle Gallery, Karachi in 2019, Islamabad Art Fair 2019, Islamabad; and India Art Fair, 2020 – 2024. I have also taken part in numerous projects, including working as an editor for “Stories We Tell,” a collaborative publication by the Lahore Biennale Foundation, Lahore; Beaconhouse National University and CKU.
Aside from curating multiple exhibitions in Pakistan, I have been a part of the New Narratives in Photography Residency program (2023 -2024); A collaborative project Grain Projects Birmingham and TasweerGhar Lahore, Funded by British Council Pakistan. I am currently part of the permanent faculty as a Senior Lecturer at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.
Mittal Institute: Can you describe your artistic motivations?
Waleed Zafar: My practice is an exploration of South Asian identity based on historical, socio-political and genetic markers through the lense of visual culture. South Asia as a region comprises multiple ethnic, religious, racial and caste groups. Looking into racial politics and its contextual overlaps with caste systems in South Asia, my work explores the idea of identity propagated through archival imagery and ethnographic photography. Researching the representation of South Asians in history, my work tries to piece together how caste systems in India, colonial ethnography and historic migrations are interrelated in creating a complex network of identities. The resulting research helps contextualise contemporary politics in the region and provides a basis for why certain structures of identity have formed and their implications today.
Mittal Institute: What are you most excited about being in Cambridge and on the Harvard campus?
Waleed Zafar: I am excited to explore the various museums at Harvard and Libraries to further my research and collect visual information through books and archives. Interacting with the diverse faculty and student body will give me insight and opportunity to interact and develop my ideas. I am also extremely excited to attend the various electives offered at Harvard as an opportunity to learn.
Mittal Institute: What do you hope to research while here at Harvard?
Waleed Zafar: My research looks at the idea of race from a South Asian context and the theoretical/ political overlaps with the South Asian caste system. The primary focus of the fellowship will be to look into Harvard’s Archives on South Asian Art and photography from the lens of racial and caste based politics to understand colonial ethnography and painting practices.
Gallery of Work
Click on the image below to see the gallery!
☆ The views represented herein are those of the interview subjects and do not necessarily reflect the views of LMSAI, its staff, or its steering committee.