Areesha Khuwaja (Pakkhee) is a visual ethnographer, artist, and curator whose work explores the intersections of folklore, ecology, and technology. Her practice emerges from the silence between sound and image; addressing how South Asia’s rich oral traditions often remain undocumented visually.

 

Through Lahooti’s archival work, she translates the myths and melodies she has heard into contemporary visual languages that bridge memory and imagination.

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As the founder of Pakkhee Studios and curator of the Digital Archive of Karoonjhar, she documents the myths, music, and environmental struggles surrounding the sacred granite mountains of Nagarparkar. Her ongoing projects like She’s always been here and Karoonjhar as Kin listen to the mountain as a living relative; an ancestor and witness of time, using animation and mixed-reality storytelling to evoke its sentience.

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Recently, Areesha has extended her practice to the valleys of Kathmandu and Swat, tracing heritage, animism, and the intimate knowledge of food and herbs as forms of living archives. She also runs the programming at Karoonjhar Commune in Bhodesar, a site for artist residencies and land-based learning that continues her inquiry into ecological storytelling and care.