There is a profound vulnerability in returning to a space you once abandoned. For architect and artist Muneeb Ali Khan, his solo exhibition ‘Heda’a Kaar’ represents exactly that: a return to a sanctuary within the heart. It is a grounding mechanism against the rigid, concrete demands of everyday life.
Hosted at Studio B2 in Islamabad, a venue owned by Fatima Hamid, the exhibition features 29 intricately stippled pieces. Utilising a careful mix of pen, pencil, watercolour, felt-tip marker and a distinct dash of ashwood veneer, Khan has mapped out a cartography of personal history, societal critique and spiritual reflection.
The exhibit’s title sets a hauntingly beautiful tone. The expression heda‘a kaar is a linguistic hybrid that blends an Arabic root with a Persian suffix to honour the oral tradition of Alheda’a, which is used in Saudi Arabia by herders to direct camels through the desert. It invokes the image of a lonely traveller in a vast desert, humming a rhythmic song to his camel companion so that, in the absolute darkness of the night, their heartbeats synchronise against the solitude.
For Khan, these paintings are a representation of that very synchronicity. After having spent years navigating the corporate grids of architectural practice in Islamabad and in the United Kingdom, it was in the process of creating these artworks that Khan found a path to harmonise his inner life with the outside world.
