Wednesday Walkthrough: Art & Chai with Art South Asia Project
In this wednesday walkthrough, Art South Asia Project (ASAP) will guide visitors through Lines That World a River لکیروں سے دریا تھامنا, the first European solo exhibition by multi-disciplinary artist Shahana Rajani (b.1987, Pakistan) with contributions from Ustad Abdul Aziz, Abdul Sattar and Aziza Ahmad. The exhibition centres practices and lineages of drawing and painting through which coastal communities in Pakistan remain connected to sacred ecologies of rivers and sea amidst the violence and erasure of infrastructure and the climate emergency.
ASAP will facilitate an informal collective reading event, ‘Art & Chai’, where food, art, and community converge. Art & Chai will guide participants through the themes of the exhibition, Lines That World a River, using a companion reader that explores our changing relationship with water and land. The text will present the specific geographical context of the exhibition, the disruption of access to and flow of water in urban dwellings, and how individuals/ communities manage their grief in the face of loss and catastrophe.
The programme will be a two-hour session. The first hour will be dedicated to reading the text together, followed by a discussion in the second half. Moderators Nour Aslam and Kuhu Kopariha will guide the group through specific excerpts from the text, encouraging them to share their views on the subject and, perhaps, also their own relationship with water and land.
The event is hosted on Earth Day 2026. To manage anxieties about climate change, Art & Chai insists on a calming and comforting session that allows participants to share food & beverages during the discussions. Art South Asia Project envision a relaxing ‘chai-time’ environment where stories and anecdotes are exchanged and subsequently preserved in our collective memory.
Art South Asia Project (ASAP) is a UK-based not for profit established in 2021. We support the infrastructure of modern and contemporary visual and applied arts in South Asia by facilitating and expanding networks of collaboration and research. We work between South Asia and the UK, offering grants and creating collaborative programmes focused on research, archiving, and publications. We also promote professional development through workshops, talks, symposia, and fellowships, highlighting the narratives and histories of South Asian art.
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Access
Find information about getting here and our building access and facilities here.
This event will be held in the Galleries. Meet at Reception.
Speakers will use microphones.
This event is wheelchair accessible.
If you have any questions around access or have specific access requirements we can accommodate, please get in touch with us by emailing info@nottinghamcontemporary.org or phoning 0115 948 9750.