Alliance Française Lahore exhibition reunites 15 NCA artists after 25 years

Abida Shaheen

Lahore: An exhibition bringing together 15 artists from the National College of Arts (NCA) Fine Arts graduating batch of 2001 concluded at La Galerie, Alliance Française de Lahore, after exploring 25 years of artistic practice, personal experiences, memory and creative transformation.

Titled THEN, NOW & EVERYTHING BETWEEN, the exhibition offered a collective retrospective of the participating artists’ creative journeys since their graduation, highlighting how their artistic practices evolved through changing circumstances, personal experiences and encounters with the world.

The exhibition reunited artists who began their professional journeys as members of the same graduating batch at one of Pakistan’s leading art institutions. Their reunion after a quarter of a century provided an opportunity to revisit the ideas, influences and aspirations that shaped their early artistic development and examine how their work matured and diversified over the years.

Placing time and transformation at the centre of its narrative, the exhibition reflected the distance between the artists’ formative years at NCA and their present-day practices. It also acknowledged the experiences, challenges, discoveries and developments that influenced their individual artistic trajectories.

Bringing together 15 distinct artistic voices, the exhibition presented a broad reflection on continuity and change in contemporary art. Although the participating artists shared a common educational background and graduating year, their subsequent journeys were shaped by individual perspectives and experiences, revealing both the connections that united them and the differences that distinguished their work.

The participating artists were Fatima Salman, Ayaz Jokhio, Mahbub Shah, Fatima Saeed, Imran Ahmad, Maria Imaad, Asad Hayee, Maryam Rahman, Nadia Khawaja, Hasnat Mehmood, Shahana Munawar, Sabina Zaffar, Hassan Rana, Zainub J Khawaja and Sadaf Naeem.

Renowned artist Imran Qureshi attended the exhibition as the guest of honour, adding significance to the gathering of established artistic voices connected through a shared history and a continuing engagement with art.

The exhibition was curated by Shah Zaman Baloch, Fatima Salman and Anne Sophie Francais, whose collaborative approach brought the artists’ individual practices together within a common framework of memory, reflection and artistic evolution.

Beyond presenting a collection of artworks, the exhibition highlighted the lasting relationships formed through formal art education and the role of artistic communities in supporting creative development. A graduating batch can mark the beginning of diverse professional paths, sustained experimentation and evolving approaches to artistic expression. Reuniting after 25 years allowed the participating artists to reflect on these journeys and reconsider the relationship between their early influences and present creative concerns.

For Lahore’s art community, the exhibition provided an opportunity to engage with the work and experiences of artists whose practices had developed through decades of personal and professional change. It also encouraged reflection on the ways memory, time and lived experience contribute to the formation of artistic identities.

Hosted by Alliance Française de Lahore, the exhibition underscored the institution’s role in promoting cultural exchange and artistic engagement. Its collective presentation brought past and present into dialogue, highlighting the enduring influence of formative experiences and the creative possibilities that emerge as artists grow and evolve.

Through the reunion of the NCA graduating class of 2001, THEN, NOW & EVERYTHING BETWEEN celebrated not only 25 years of individual artistic journeys but also the continuing connections between artists, their shared beginnings and their evolving contributions to contemporary art.