Arts & Crafts - 4

A dozen independent television channels have sprung up, from general networks to specialised news, fashion and music stations. Combined with a boom in advertising, increasing economic growth and rapid cable and satellite penetration, these outlets are fuelling not only a new industry, but also a new culture – one not limited to a narrow Westernised [...]

Sadia Zafar learned in Pakistan — her birthplace — by watching friends. She later went to school to perfect her skills. Unlike in the United States, threading is so common in Pakistan and India that institutions teach it. The origin of threading is unclear, and while some people say it began in the Middle East, [...]

Somehow our museums are not a popular subject for newspapers. Also called the Virsa Museum (because it was planned and laid out by Lok Virsa, the National Institute of Folk and Traditional Heritage) it is completely different from other museums. The museum is splendid opportunity for the people of Pakistan who live in Islamabad or [...]

Zahoor Khan, a resident of Megowal village, was digging earth for some construction work outside the village when the tractor’s blades touched an earthen pot deep under the soil. With the brushing, the pot broke but led tractor driver Imran to the discovery of some metallic things. The next moment he was surprised to see [...]

Pakistan is rich in minerals and offers: Ruby, emerald, tourmaline, garnet (pyrope, almandine, rhodolite, demantoid, spessartite, and hessonite), topaz, peridot, aquamarine, spinel, pargasite, diopside, moonstone, serpentine jade, epidote, pink beryl (morganite), purple beryl, sphene, zoisite, lapis lazuli, turquoise, kunzite and almost all known varieties of quartz. One encouraging sign is that efforts are underway to [...]

Peace, solidarity and inter-religious dialogue: these were the themes expressed in art works on display in the first national exhibition of sacred calligraphy. Guest of honour was 45-year-old Shafiq Shad Khan, a renowned Christian-Muslim philosopher of Pakistan, who exhibited his works for the 111th time. The works exhibited by Khan confirm the inaugural speech: the [...]

An expanding industry in the west and evolving still in our part of the world, digital art has found a promising proponent in Pakistan in the shape of Syed Hassan Masood Pasha, a find of Alliance Francaise, which launched the computer wizard in the artists’ community of Islamabad by holding the first-ever solo exhibition of [...]

Among his famous correct predictions were former Pakistan great Imran Khan to suffer a shin bone injury in 1980s, Pope John Paul to die because of ill health in 2005, that an earthquake to hit South Asia in December 2004 and Tony Blair to win a third election. He said he was inspired to learn [...]

The site chosen for the purpose is the 125-year old Tollington Market on The Mall in Lahore, which has seen many ups and downs in its life. Till recently, and for as long as one remembers, it was a fruit, fish, and vegetable market, but then the Punjab Government decided to restore its original function [...]

The issue driving forward the fair was clearly etched out in the slogan; “Visible Products, Invisible hands.” It sought to make visible poverty-stricken women across Pakistan, who turn to the traditional arts of their area-usually passed down from mother to daughter over generations-to increase their household income. But because these women are manacled by 3 [...]