Zarmeene Shah

Zarmeene Shah

Zarmeene Shah is an academic, and an independent curator and writer currently based in Karachi, Pakistan. Focusing on global contemporary art with specialist knowledge of the Global South, and Pakistan in particular, Shah’s research-based practice investigates ideas of power and control, geography and territory, rights and access. Since 2010, she has curated and been involved in the production of several notable and often large-scale exhibitions of contemporary art institutionally and independently, including The Rising Tide: New Directions in Art From Pakistan (Karachi, 2010), the politically focused Parrhesia I & II shows (Karachi, 2011 & 2015), Althea Thauberger’s Pagal Pagal Pagal Pagal Filmi Dunya (Karachi, 2017), Madiha Aijaz’s Memorial for the Lost Pages (Vancouver, 2020), and Manzar: Art and Architecture from Pakistan 1940s to Today (Doha, 2024) .

Amongst other prominent projects and appointments, she has served as Assistant Director and Curator of the Mohatta Palace Museum and Curator-at-Large of the inaugural Karachi Biennale in 2017 (KB17). She has also been Consultant for South Asian Art at the CCA Derry, Londonderry, and guest curator for the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver (2020), as well as for the Art Mill Museum, part of Qatar Museums in Doha, where she has recently curated the landmark exhibition Manzar: Art and Architecture from Pakistan 1940s to today. Shah’s writings have been published in magazines, journals, books, catalogues and monographs, both local and international. She is currently Associate Professor and Director Graduate Studies at the Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture.