Meet Our Artists-in-Residence: Rubab & Konain
Artudio International Artists Residency (AIAR) | July 2025
We are delighted to welcome two exceptional artists, Rubab and Konain, as part of the Artudio International Artists Residency (AIAR) for the July 2025 session. Both artists bring unique interdisciplinary practices that bridge art, research, and cultural inquiry.
Rubab
Writer | Researcher | Artist | Pakistan
Rubab is a writer, researcher, and artist from Pakistan, currently pursuing her Master’s in Critical Media Studies at HSE University, Moscow. Her creative work spans science fiction, speculative narratives, and digital curation, grounded in research interests such as cultural theory, diasporic identity, and digital humanities.
Through her residency at Artudio, Rubab aims to explore the layered intersections between imagined futures and present realities, fostering dialogue between narrative, media, and cultural memory.
Konain
Interdisciplinary Artist | Data Scientist | Educator | Pakistan
Konain is an interdisciplinary artist, data scientist, and educator whose creative and academic practice explores human history, migration, and language. Currently undertaking graduate studies in Information Science, they use mapping and data visualization as powerful storytelling tools to make visible the often invisible paths of identity and movement.
At Artudio, Konain is engaging with Nepal’s diverse cultural and geographic landscapes, creating works that reflect on how place, memory, and knowledge intersect across borders.
Together, Rubab and Konain embody the spirit of the Artudio International Artists Residency (AIAR)—fostering critical exchange, cultural immersion, and creative innovation across disciplines, media, and geographies. Their collaborative presence brings a unique blend of research-driven art, digital storytelling, and poetic inquiry into the residency space.
As part of their residency at Artudio, they are collectively developing a project titled “Connection, Memory, and Borders,” a digital curation initiative that explores the intersections of personal histories, diasporic narratives, and the spatial politics of belonging. Through this work, Rubab and Konain examine how contemporary digital spaces can act as both archives and active agents of artistic expression, particularly within the context of migration and displacement.
Blending speculative fiction, data visualization, digital humanities, and cultural research, the project aims to foreground alternative ways of mapping and remembering—drawing attention to how art and technology can collaboratively resist erasure and reimagine connection across borders.
This thoughtful and timely collaboration will culminate in a final exhibition at the conclusion of their residency, where they will present the outcomes of their shared inquiry and invite audiences to engage with the layered landscapes they’ve uncovered in Kathmandu.
We are excited to witness the narratives, questions, and resonances that will emerge through their process and the final showcase.
Stay updated to know more about their work and process.