Can Artistic Freedom Exist in a Banana Republic?

Bina Shah
Bina Shah
Nov 1 · 6 min read

An incident of censorship at the Karachi Biennale 2019 illustrates the difficulties of being an artist in a struggling democracy like Pakistan.

Artist Adeela Suleman’s exhibit knocked down at Karachi Biennale

Following in the footsteps of other major cities with art biennales such as Venice, Havana, Shanghai and Sharjah, the art biennale behemoth finally came to Pakistan in 2017, with both Karachi and Lahore hosting major art shows by…

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Bina Shah

Written by

Bina Shah

Wellesley grad. Pakistani writer & NYT columnist. Feminist. Author of Before She Sleeps. I want women to live powerful lives.

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