reinforced and often subverted in everyday life. This was a theme that Abidi returned to in her subsequent videos. Applying a keen ethnographic eye to elements of Pakistani culture and politics, dialogues and a conventional narrative are often absent in her pieces. Her video works contain audio-visual footage put together in a striking fashion that makes the fictional narrative appears life-like. The film-making gaze of the artist offers a close-up view of a range of experiences of waiting wherein viewers can immerse themselves. It is through this experience of waiting that clear social hierarchies are visually established. In addition to creating videos, Abidi also works with photography, digital imaging, and installations. Her photographic series Karachi (2009), is based in the multi-religious city where the artist grew up. During the holy month of Ramadan, the images were shot on the deserted streets of the city after sundown. When the Muslim masses retired indoors to end the day’s fast, Abidi staged scenarios that portrayed members of Pakistan’s religious minorities – Hindus, Christians and Zoroastrians. They emerged into the twilight to briefly claim some space in a public sphere that is quite hostile to religious differences. It is presented to viewers as a problem of perception, subtly questioning the inability of Pakistan's political vision to guarantee equal rights for all its citizens, regardless of religion. Recent works The threshold between the security of private life and the increasingly violent & unpredictable public space in contemporary Pakistan is a recurring recent interest for Abidi. Her more recent works builds upon her interests in satirizing bureaucracy, masculinity and patriotism. This allowed for poignantly subversive discourses to emerge even more than before. In her video work An Unforeseen Situation (2015), Abidi relates to a series of state-run competitions, organized by the Ministry of Sport in the Pakistani region of Punjab in 2014. According to reports, Pakistan broke several world records during these mass events. The artist used this as an opportunity to tell her own version of such an event – a failed competition for the greatest mass singing of the national anthem. In this way she unmasks the absurdity of such interactions between state-run staging and civilian performance. Notable exhibitions and collections Solo exhibitions Bani’s work has been a part of solo exhibitions at Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2019); Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2019); Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2017); Kunsthaus Hamburg (2016); Gandhara Art Space, Karachi (2016);