The Urdu word ‘kal’ shares the two-directional ability of looking backwards and forwards, much like the mythical Roman god Janus. Coincidentally, Janus represented the auspicious spirit of gateways from which to enter and exit a city. Kal, by its ambiguity, offers a semantic gateway to the metaphysics of time past and time forward. Karachi, too, owes its transformation from a fishing village to a cosmopolitan city to its port as a gateway for commerce.

The metaphysical linkage of past and present is intentional in Noor Ahmed’s choice of the term ‘Kal’, by which to inspire artists participating in the next Karachi Biennale (KB27). As the curator of the fifth Karachi Biennale that will take place in January 2027, she is casting the curatorial net across an ambitious spectrum of time that should allow archives, imagination and visionary ideas to be formulated into thoughtful art forms.

Linking the past and the future is the present moment, the aaj [today]. This tricky and shapeshifting moment in the now is what Noor and KB trustee Amin Gulgee (the curator of the first KB in 2017) focused on in their joint curation of the KB27 curtain-raiser that took........

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