associate artist

I was born in Karachi, Pakistan and now live in South London.

I am a multidisciplinary artist and researcher driven by community-engaged and archival creative projects. My first experience with Living Communities CIC’s Meet & Make Spaces was with the community-engaged and heritage-focused public art project called Threads of Tooting, wherein I painted a mural featuring Shalwar Kameez, a Saree, and Kente cloth. 

My recent work has focused on public murals that unveil untold histories, culminating through creative and collaborative approaches, creating site-specific archives accessible to all. In my practice, I also use oral history and genealogical archiving, aiming to break down the barriers around privileged narratives of what is considered worthy of being ‘knowable’ and focus on the production of counter-memories. Developing my research practice has been helped by my background in MSc Human Rights and Politics at LSE – although I believe a lot of that is also creative work. 

I am also co-founder of Azl, a grassroots digital publication and open-source space for knowledge exchange, aiming to create an invitation to liberation as a collective effort to ask and answer critical questions about how we relate to one another.

@shizaaaaaa