Bani Abidi (born 1971) is a Pakistani artist working with video, photography and drawing. She studied visual arts at the National College of Arts in Lahore and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2011, she was invited for the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin program, and since then has been residing in Berlin. Early life and education Abidi was born in Karachi, the capital of Pakistani province of Sindh, in 1971. She has lived in New Delhi and Karachi, and currently resides in Berlin. In 1994, she chose to study painting and printmaking, earning a Bachelor of Arts from the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan. From 1997 she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, completing a master's degree in 1999. While attending the Art Institute, she developed a profound interest in cinematography that led to her engagement with video as a medium. This is when performance and photography were incorporated in her creative process. These mediums have provided her with a powerful tool to address the problems of nationalism, specifically those surrounding the Indo-Pakistani conflicts and the violent legacy of the 1947 partition which divided the two countries. The uneven representation of these defining moments in the mass media was also featured in her works. She mainly focused upon how these issues affected everyday lives and individual experiences. Artistic practice Early works The subject of Abidi's earliest venture was a trilogy of humorous video diptychs that put spotlight on the ongoing hostility between Pakistan and India. She played the role of both an Indian woman and a Pakistani woman in Mangoes (1999), where they reminisce about the old times while eating mangoes. Their camaraderie is gradually replaced by conflict as nationalism, about the variety and quality of mangoes native to each country, hampers the discussion in progress. On the similar lines, her work The News (2001) depicts the news anchors reporting the same international incident from their respective national perspectives. The conventions of costumes and the languages depicting each of the nations are precise. Even though these videos showcase the visual differences, the fact that Abidi herself plays both the roles puts emphasis on the cultural similarities between the two nations. It comes across as a visualization of the term “the nearness of difference” put forth by the scholar Homi Bhabha. These early works, infused with humor and irony, highlights ways in which nationalism is enacted,