Unspoken — Stories Left Untold | Cosmopolitan Art Magazine Pakistan

About the Exhibition

When silence becomes visual language.

Some stories are spoken aloud. Others live quietly within memory, the body and the spaces we inhabit. Unspoken — Stories Left Untold created a place for those stories to be seen.

Presented by Cosmopolitan Art Magazine in collaboration with DOT, the exhibition brought together 89 artistic voices from across Pakistan. Emerging artists were invited to reveal an experience that had remained hidden or close to the heart: a life-changing moment, a cherished memory, an inherited silence, a private joy, a heartbreak or a truth still searching for words.

Across painting, printmaking, mixed media, sculpture, installation and works on paper, each artist responded through a distinct visual language. Together, the works transformed individual experiences into a collective encounter—one in which vulnerability became connection and personal histories entered public conversation.

“Every artwork carried a voice. Together, they became a conversation that could no longer remain unspoken.”

Set within the everyday surroundings of DOT Gulberg, Lahore, the exhibition moved art beyond the distance of a conventional gallery. Visitors encountered the works over coffee, conversation and shared reflection, allowing contemporary art to become immediate, welcoming and part of daily life.

Curated by Mahaa Malik and Maham Malik, the exhibition centred emerging practices without asking the artists to conform to a single aesthetic. Instead, it celebrated difference—of material, memory, perspective and expression—while building a wider platform for artists to be witnessed, documented and remembered.

Guest of HonourRashid RanaOne of the leading artists of his generation in South Asia, Rashid Rana is internationally recognised for a multidisciplinary practice spanning photography, painting, sculpture, video and digital media. His innovative work explores dualities, paradoxes and parallel realities, while his presence as Guest of Honour made the occasion especially meaningful for the exhibition’s emerging artists and wider creative community.

Stories that stood out.

Among the many voices in the exhibition, these practices offered especially memorable approaches to material, memory and subjects that are often difficult to articulate.

01 · MEMORY

Mahnoor Abid

Mahnoor’s work stood out for its intimate exploration of memory through her late mother’s diamond rings. Working with oil paint and acrylic sheets, she translated crystal, light and reflection into images that feel fragile, luminous and enduring—holding joy and pain within the same visual language.

02 · SILENCE & VIOLENCE

Minahil Mehmood

Through Aaina, Mirror Maze and Bol Ke Lab Azad Hain Tere, Minahil examined bodily autonomy, victim-blaming and the emotional weight carried by survivors. Mirrors, resin and fractured surfaces turned reflection into a quiet confrontation with social complicity.

03 · THE RESTLESS MIND

Sehar Seerat Naqvi

In From Wool to Stone, the familiar comfort of counting sheep slowly becomes psychological weight. Sehar’s work traced how a gentle ritual can become a maze for the sleepless mind, transforming softness and warmth into heaviness and repetition.

04 · CLIMATE DISPLACEMENT

Madiha Manzoor

Madiha’s Dreamscape Beyond series followed a tiger, reindeer and heron through collapsing habitats. Her oil-pastel works turned climate-forced displacement into surreal elegies for animals leaving landscapes that can no longer sustain them.

05 · INHERITED SILENCE

Maham Khan

In What Was Never Spoken, family portraits confronted grief, absence and generational wounds. Acrylic paint—and, in one work, real blood—made the canvas feel like a living body, insisting that inherited silence be recognized rather than concealed.

06 · EVERYDAY ROLES

Laiba Tanveer

Works including Inherited Roles, Small Tendernesses and Bleed in Red brought attention to the emotional weight carried within everyday roles. Through oil painting, Laiba held tenderness and tension together with restraint.

Two visions. One exhibition.

Mahaa Malik and Maham Malik brought complementary strengths to Unspoken—one building the platform and possibilities, the other shaping the exhibition with precision. Together, the duo transformed an open call into a collective public experience.

Platform & Vision

Mahaa Malik

Mahaa’s vision was to give emerging artists the confidence and power to stand out—to be seen beyond familiar circles and have their stories treated with seriousness. Her focus on access, visibility and community shaped the exhibition into more than a display: it became a platform for new voices to claim space, build connections and move forward.

Curatorial Direction

Maham Malik

Maham ensured that the curation remained precise and cohesive from beginning to end. Her strong visual judgement, attention to placement and understanding of how artworks speak to one another gave 89 distinct practices room to breathe while holding the exhibition together as one considered experience.

Unspoken —
Stories Left Untold

When silence becomes visual language.

Stories that stood out.