Grand Mushaira, book launch, exhibition of Pakistani artist held in Hamburg

HAMBURG, Sep 27 (APP): A grand Mushaira and literary gathering was held in Hamburg, featuring the launch of Qaleed-e-Hijab, the eighth book by renowned German-Pakistani poetess Tahira Rabab while an exhibition by Pakistani artist Farrah Mahmood Rana, also opened in the city at the Zwischenraum at MARKK Museum am Rothenbaum.

The grand Mushaira was presided over by Hamburg Parliament member Gulfam Malik, while prominent Chicago-based writer and author Abid Rashid was the chief guest. According to the organisers, his work on the life and teachings of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) received a top award in Pakistan, which was presented by Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif.

First Secretary at the Embassy of Pakistan Ali Shahid, Press Counsellor Dr Sohail Aftab, Pakistan Peoples Party Germany Information Secretary Farid Shah, Central Multicultural Mosque founder and president Ghazanfar-ud-Din Ahmad, and renowned blogger and podcaster Shah Rukh Mahmood were among the prominent guests attending the gathering.

A number of poets participated in the Mushaira and presented their poetry, receiving appreciation from the audience. Tahira Rabab and Abid Rashid also addressed the gathering and shared their views on Urdu literature, poetry and the importance of preserving Pakistani literary and cultural traditions abroad.

The organisers described the gathering as an important literary event in Hamburg, aimed at promoting Urdu language and literature and strengthening cultural ties of the Pakistani community in Germany.

The event concluded with appreciation for the organisers, participating poets, writers and guests for their contribution to the promotion of Urdu literature and Pakistani cultural heritage in Germany.

Meanwhile, When the Leaves Speak, an exhibition by Pakistani artist Farrah Mahmood Rana, opened at the Zwischenraum at MARKK Museum am Rothenbaum in Hamburg.

The exhibition presents 16 artworks alongside a hands-on workshop in traditional miniature painting, bringing South Asian artistic knowledge into dialogue with contemporary concerns about climate change, ecological vulnerability, memory, and interdependence.

In Rana’s work, nature is not a passive backdrop but a narrative voice. On hand-prepared wasli paper, she uses trees, lotus flowers, fish, eggs, and connecting dots as recurring symbols of vulnerability, resilience, renewal, and interconnectedness.

The exhibition approaches climate change as both an ecological and emotional crisis, encouraging audiences to consider the relationships between human life and the natural systems that sustain it. This emphasis on interconnected vulnerability aligns with international climate assessments that examine impacts across ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities.

The lotus represents renewal, resilience, and transformation, while eggs evoke birth, fertility, and the continuing cycle of life. Connecting dots form an underlying visual network that links these motifs and suggests the often-unseen relationships among living beings, environments, memories, and experiences.

The project also demonstrates how miniature painting can function as a contemporary language while retaining the discipline of its historical practice. South Asian miniature traditions are known for meticulous drawing, carefully prepared paper, controlled brushwork, and layered pigment application. Rana reworks this detailed visual vocabulary into an ecological narrative in which craftsmanship becomes a means of reflection on care, coexistence, and responsibility.

“When the Leaves Speak” connects past and present, cultural tradition and contemporary storytelling. Its intimate scale and detailed imagery invite close looking while its subject expands outward to questions of collective responsibility and the fragile relationships that connect people with the natural world.

An integral part of the exhibition is a workshop led by Rana, designed to introduce participants to traditional miniature painting techniques. During the workshop, she taught the Sufaid Qalam technique, allowing participants an opportunity to work directly with the disciplined processes of South Asian miniature painting. The sessions focused on precision, patience, observation, material handling, and the detailed application of line and form, while showing how a time-honored technique can evolve through contemporary practice.

Participants came from diverse cultural backgrounds, including Kenya, China, Japan, and Iran. Their participation transformed the workshop into a space of international cultural exchange, where miniature painting became a shared point of learning and dialogue. The project therefore extends beyond the display of finished artworks: it also creates an opportunity for artistic knowledge to be transmitted through practice and encountered by an international community.

Curated by Gabriel Schimmeroth and co-curated by Dagmar Rauwald, the project brings exhibition making, artistic practice, and public learning together. Rauwald’s curatorial framework emphasizes the workshop as an immersive introduction to a sophisticated South Asian art form and recognizes the international connections through which miniature painting continues to develop.

Rana’s central proposition is that trust is a living network formed through vulnerability, care, reciprocity, and shared survival. Fish, lotus motifs, eggs, trees, and connecting dots operate together as a symbolic field in which human and non-human relationships become visible. Through this layered vocabulary, the exhibition proposes that care for nature is inseparable from the relationships through which human life is sustained.

The exhibition and workshop are part of a wider cultural exchange that connects Pakistani miniature practice with an international audience in Germany. The exhibition will continue till January 2027.

Farrah Mahmood Rana is a Pakistani artist working with the visual and technical language of South Asian miniature painting. Her practice develops contemporary narratives around nature, memory, identity, and ecological relationships. In When the Leaves Speak, she combines traditional materials and techniques with symbolic imagery to reflect on climate change, interconnectedness, and collective responsibility.