Mahnoor Euceph  

The Image Remembers: Chughtai Moving Portraits 

Curated by Hibah Mian 

Community Generator – Lounge 

August 14, 2026 – January 3, 2027 

What becomes possible when a familiar image is seen again? 

 For nearly a century, the paintings of Abdur Rahman Chughtai have shaped the visual language of modern South Asian art. Their delicate figures, lyrical compositions, and dreamlike atmospheres occupy an enduring place within Pakistan’s artistic imagination. Yet like many canonical works, they are often encountered as fixed historical objects – admired, preserved, and rarely reimagined. 

In Chughtai Moving Portraits, Los Angeles-based artist and producer Mahnoor Euceph reactivates this legacy through moving image. Rather than treating Chughtai’s paintings as untouchable historical artifacts, Euceph approaches them as living works capable of generating new meanings. Through moving image, she extends their visual language into the present, revealing that artistic inheritance is not fixed but continually shaped through reinterpretation. Here, movement is not simply an aesthetic device; it becomes a method for thinking with history rather than around it.  

Presented alongside reproductions of Chughtai’s original works, these contemporary moving portraits invite viewers to consider how artistic inheritance evolves across generations, technologies, and geographies. The dialogue between stillness and motion reveals that cultural memory is never static. Images continue to gather new meanings as they travel through time, migration, and contemporary forms of visual storytelling. 

Together, these works demonstrate that artistic legacies are sustained not through preservation alone, but through continued acts of reinterpretation. The Image Remembers: Chughtai Moving Portraits is not about bringing Abdur Rahman Chughtai into the present—his work has never disappeared from Pakistan’s visual culture. Rather, it asks how the terms through which we encounter his work continue to evolve. By placing historical painting in dialogue with contemporary moving image, the exhibition offers a way of seeing one of Pakistan’s most celebrated artistic legacies not as a fixed chapter in art history, but as an active and continually unfolding conversation. 

Hibah Mian is a Mississauga-based curator, educator, and cultural strategist whose practice spans exhibitions, research, and public pedagogy across Canada and internationally. Her work explores migration, memory, language, and visual culture through research-driven exhibitions and interdisciplinary programming. She has curated projects with institutions including the City of Toronto, City of Mississauga, Museums of Mississauga, Peel Art Gallery, Museum + Archives, Oxford Properties, Manifesto Community Projects, and HAAM Gallery in Lahore, Pakistan. Mian has also served as a public art juror and taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Humber Polytechnic and the University of Toronto. 

Mahnoor Euceph is a Los Angeles-based writer, director, and producer whose work explores the South Asian diaspora through the female gaze, blending humour with stories of identity, belonging, and decolonization. A graduate of UCLA and USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where she was a George Lucas Scholar, she is the creator of the award-winning short film Eid Mubarak, which screened at more than 40 international festivals and was longlisted for the 96th Academy Awards. In 2024, she was selected for both the Proof of Concept accelerator founded by Cate Blanchett and Coco Francini, and the Pillars Artist Fellowship. She is currently developing her first feature film, 11:11. 

Paper Pals Collective 

Paper Bound
Community Generator – Hallways and Displays
August 14, 2026 – January 3, 2027 

Paper Pals Collective’s Paper Bound explores a deep connection to the living world through printmaking, paper arts, and mixed media. From relief prints of swimming sea turtles to Suminagashi paper marbling, eco-printing, and woven paper works, each piece reflects the patterns, rhythms, and textures found in nature. 

Working with Japanese and Western papers, recycled materials, thread, and natural dyes, the artists embrace layered processes that celebrate the forms and interconnectedness of plants, waterways, landscapes, and living systems. Together, the exhibition reveals the beauty of the natural world while inviting viewers to consider their own relationship to the environments that sustain them. 

Beverly Allen is a Hamilton-based artist whose work is deeply inspired by nature. Working with printmaking, eco-printing, book arts, collage, papier-mâché, and textiles, she creates layered works that invite close looking. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and she serves on the Board of the Burlington Fine Arts Association. 

Cecily Flemming is a Burlington printmaker whose multi-layered linocuts and monoprints evoke emotional connections to the natural world. A self-taught artist with a background in environmental science and education, her work has been widely exhibited and is held in numerous private collections. 

Dominique Prévost is an Oakville-based artist whose practice explores the recurring patterns found in rivers, trees, skies, and the human body. Combining linocut, drawing, brush painting, and Suminagashi marbling, her award-winning work has been exhibited extensively in Canada and internationally. 

Tricia W. Rawlins is a Burlington printmaker and paper artist whose woven paper works combine original prints with Japanese and handmade papers. A graduate of the University of Toronto and Sheridan College, she teaches printmaking and paper arts and facilitates the Burlington Fine Arts Association Printmakers.