Bio

Saba Khan’s art practice investigates Pakistan’s watery habitats from the coasts of Sindh to the glaciers of Himalayas. Khan explores how water becomes a tracer of colonial and post-independence histories that enclosed the Indus River for agriculture and hydropower. Muddy water also becomes a medium for seeing modernist disruptions of millennia-old ecosystems and centuries-old human cultures. Against the extraction of water, Khan looks to myths and songs of people for whom the river is as much a natural habitat as it is for the blind river dolphin. Saba Khan’s work in mixed media installations, in which she embarks on expeditions to document the historical and future impacts of dams constructed on the Indus River, which carries water and sediment 3,000 kilometers from the Himalaya Mountains down the coastal Sindh. The artist gathers samples and data as she investigates the conflicted histories, hydrological engineering, and water bodies,including the blind dolphin Bholan, Khawaja Khizr, and water activists, that converge in the tide country. She has taught at the National College of Arts, Lahore for 13 years and now teaches at the Chelsea College of Arts as an Associate Lecturer. In 2014 founded Murree Museum Artist Residency that continued as a satirical collective ‘Pak Khawateen Painting Club’ from 2019 - 2023.

She recently exhibited at The High Line (solo, 2026), MAC Birmingham (solo, 2026), 18th International Triennial of Textile (2025), Elevation 1049 (2025), Swiss Institute, USA (2024), National Museums of Qatar, Doha (2024), Gangwon Triennial (2024), Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023), Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE (2022), Jameel Art Centre (2022), Paul Mellon Centre (2021), Lahore Biennial 02, Pakistan (2020), COMO Lahore (2019) and Karachi Biennial (2017). She attended residencies at Casa Wabi (2025), Art Explora (2025), Unidee (2024), Delfina Foundation (2023), Onassis AiR (2022), Para Site Hong Kong (2018), Gwangju Biennial (2016), Civitella Ranieri Foundation (2007). She has previously received grants from 421 (2022), Foundation for the Arts Initiative (2018), Sharjah Art Foundation (2020), Graham Foundation (2020), British Council (2020, 2021, 2022).


Her work is in the collections of Ford Foundation, Jameel Art Centre, Sharjah Art Foundation, South Asia Art Institute, Servais Collection and Taimur Hassan Collection has been published in the New York Times, Stir World and Asia Art Pacific.