Cork-based artist who fled Pakistan says Ireland 'gave me a chance'

WITH two solo exhibitions to her name, a group residency at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), and upcoming shows in Cork and Dublin, Kinsale artist Hina Khan is enjoying the kind of recognition many can only dream of.

For Hina however, success was anything but certain when she was forced to flee her native Pakistan with her husband and two young children back in 2015.

After living in direct provision and moving between Dublin, Laois and then Mayo, the family are now happily settled in Kinsale where she feels welcomed by the local community.

“We have had real support here,” says Hina, “and that’s something I’m very grateful for.”

“In my art, I’ve had great support from council schemes and things like that, and I’ve met so many people from different backgrounds who are willing to help and collaborate.”

Since first arriving in Ireland seven years ago, Hina’s growth as an artist has been quite remarkable. Drawing on her own immigrant experience and collaborating with many artists from around the world, she has produced a striking and ever evolving body of work focusing on themes of emigration, conflict, climate, and patriarchy; concerns that have only been amplified by world events.

“My work is mostly symbolic,” she says, “but I suppose what I’m trying to say is that we are all human, we are all human first and foremost and that transcends borders or countries or whatever labels we put on ourselves.

“When I see what we are doing to our planet, what has happened with the floods in Pakistan I feel like I have to say something with my work.”

Her own emigrant experience is also something that continues to inform Hina’s work.

“It is common now and it is painful for people,” she says. “There are people coming to Ireland from all over, from Asia and Africa and now Ukraine and that is something I am very aware of.

“Children bring the memory of the trauma they have experienced with them, it is something that cannot be just wiped away.”

Hina earned a Masters in Pakistan and initially her career focused on miniatures before more recently branching out into larger scale works, installations and video pieces.

After participating in a number of group shows in Pakistan and then Ireland, she has had several residencies, including at Dublin’s Fire Station Arts Center, Create Ireland, the West Cork Art Centre and Cow House Studio.

Her first solo exhibition was held in 2018 at the Ballina Art Centre and Stradbally Art House, while her second solo exhibition, Serhadain, the Urdu word for boundaries or borders, was held this summer at the LHQ Gallery at Cork County Hall.

“I’ve met a lot of new people and I’ve had some really great collaborations over the last few years,” says Hina.

“My work is changing and being influenced all the time. You can learn a lot from other cultures, those you are not familiar with, and hopefully you can share with them too.”

Hina says that the immigrant experience is always something that binds those who are forced to leave their native lands.

“There is always something left behind, there is a pain to it that I think people can see in each other and understand.

“In Ireland here too, you have the colonial history, people know what it means to be colonised. Pakistan has just marked 75 years of independence and there is still a lot of trauma associated with that, it is something that cannot be ignored.”

Hina is also a member of the Art Nomads collective, a culturally diverse group of artists living and practicing in Ireland who are currently in residence at IMMA in Dublin, staging a variety of exhibitions, events and workshops as well as engaging in research and experimental projects with the aim of advocating for artists from diverse and minority ethnic backgrounds in Ireland.

She is also involved in two upcoming projects with well known Cork-based multimedia artist David Bickley.

For Culture Night on September 23 next, they will present Maps, an augmented reality immersive experience with watercolour paintings and living light at Kinsale College. The installation will be open from 6pm to 10pm on the night with an official opening at 7pm.

Then, in October, a second collaboration with David Bickley will run at IMMA in Dublin from October 21-23rd. Salt, a long-running project developed with Creative Ireland and Cork County Council, explores ideas of liminality with reference to borders within landscapes and cultural identity.

The four-screen project uses imagery from Garranefeen salt marsh in West Cork as a core location and Hina will participate in a live painting performance on the first day that will then be incorporated into the installation.

With so much going on, Hina might be forgiven for taking a rest, but if anything she seems determined to work harder than ever.

“The children are older and going to secondary school, so I have more opportunity to work now than I have for a long time,” she says.

“My work keeps changing and I have to keep working, it is something I need to do.

“Coming here has been a turning point - Ireland gave me a chance,” she said.