At the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC) in Birmingham, ‘Riverless Water’, London-based Pakistani artist Saba Khan’s debut solo exhibition in the United Kingdom (UK), explores the human and environmental legacies of the Mangla Dam in Azad Kashmir. Built in the 1960s on the Jhelum River, its construction submerged large parts of the Mirpur hamlets and triggered one of the largest migrations from Pakistan to the UK, significantly shaping the cultural landscape of England’s north and midlands.

Through a curated sequence of 12 paintings, drawings, archival material and video interviews with Birmingham elders, Khan traces a journey from the political spectacle of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) to the lived realities of Mirpuri migrants in post-industrial Britain, highlighting histories of loss, trauma and marginalisation often absent from official narratives. The curator, Roma Piotrowska, emphasises the exhibition’s importance for local communities with Pakistani roots, viewing it as a reflection on technological ‘progress’, climate justice and postcolonial identity.

Khan explains she did not go directly to Mangla Dam. Her interest and investigation started during her time in France, where she studied water bodies as part of her research and drew some drawings of French dams in the Alps. It was there that she first saw........

© Dawn (Magazines)