Beenish Tahir: Dresses & Phulkari from the Punjab
Posted: Mar 22nd, 2023 | Gathering

Beenish Tahir earned her PhD in Textile Design & Museum Studies from the University of Punjab, with a focus on textile museum collections in Pakistan. Beenish holds a Master’s of Interior Design and a Bachelor of Textile Design from the National College of Arts, Punjab, Pakistan. As an educationist, Tahir aims to apply her experiences in learning to teach new features of creative arts/design, history, and education. Beenish‘s past experience at the University of the Punjab includes Assistant Professor and HOD Textile Design Department where she undertook the research and supervision of textile design projects at MFA and BFA levels.  

This work is created as part of Gathering, the inaugural installation of our new Collection Gallery, featuring community stories told through our global collection. Grounded in community participation, the installation presents over 40 pieces from the Museum’s permanent collection of over 15,000 objects from around the world. Choices of objects, responses, and retellings were gathered via open online calls for reflection, through partnerships with local organizations, and through artists’ interventions. Gathering explores themes related to migration and diaspora, the search for comfort in the domestic and familial, reclamation of ancestral traditions through contemporary artistic responses, and the relationship between textiles and the environment. 

This video is part of a digital project generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Now initiative.