'Hybrid' is a suite of 20 collaborative etchings between Muhammad Atif Khan and the Australian artist Damon Kowarsky.

Speaking to Dawn.com at the opening reception on Friday, October 25, Khan explained that he had met Kowarsky before when the latter was teaching drawing at BNU Lahore in 2007 and again while teaching printmaking at Indus Valley School in 2010, but only knew him professionally. Khan said that Kowarsky had previously collaborated with other artists and he found the idea of two artists working on an image together interesting. Hence, he asked Kowarsky to collaborate with him.

Over a period of 10 months, the artists exchanged ideas and preliminary drawings by email. In October 2012 Kowarsky traveled to Lahore to work with Khan in the Cowasjee Print Studio of National College of Arts.

The themes covered in their work include art, society, war, history, identity and cultural exchange. These themes were arrived at organically through the monthly exchange of images and subsequent interventions by each artist.

Cultural exchange was an integral part of the project. As a collaboration between an Australian and a Pakistani artist cultural difference was at the core of the work. The images came from things seen by the artists in their respective countries, as well as Kowarsky's visits to Pakistan in 2007 and 2010. The development of the work occurred in both countries and was both literally and figuratively an exchange of culture and ideas.

Khan and Kowarsky are currently negotiating for 'Hybrid II', the second part of this project, to be produced in 2014.

'Hybrid' is on display simultaneously at Art Chowk Gallery Karachi and Joshua McClelland Print Room Melbourne.

Photograph by Mahjabeen Mankani/Dawn.com