An Ode to Xennial Friendships

Zohreen is an art critic, artist, and art historian. Currently she is a lecturer in the Cultural Studies Department at the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore. She has been teaching, exhibiting, and writing extensively on art since 2014. Her writings have been published regularly in the Dawn newspaper (2017-2021). Zohreen’s reviews have been published in Friday Times, Artnow, ADA Magazine, Nigaah Art Magazine, and The Karachi Collective. Her writings have also appeared internationally in Canvas Magazine Dubai, TAKE on Art Magazine, and India. Zohreen is interested in South Asian histories, post-colonial dilemmas and their intersection/overlap with globalization. Zohreen is the recipient of the Nigaah Art Award for Art Critic 2022.

“An Ode to Xennial Friendships” is a tribute to a microgeneration that has navigated shifting identities, nostalgia, and globalization. From trunk calls, Y2K flip phones, and e-greeting cards to Facebook messaging and the allure of satellite television, this generation grew up in a world shaped by both tradition and rapid technological change. They moved between continents while balancing dual passport identities and dreams of meeting Shah Rukh Khan and Britney Spears.

As they sent remittances and built families, they also indulged in Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, designer bags, and American pop culture. The arrival of satellite television transformed living rooms across geographies, flooding screens with a unipolar world of entertainment. Yet, nostalgia for “traditions back home” lingered, woven between slow dial-up internet and Bollywood songs longing for an imagined pardes. Communication evolved beyond the era of two-minute trunk calls, allowing friendships, love, and longing to endure in digital permanence.

Blending South Asian material and pop culture with global influences, this work reflects on a generation shaped by fragmented modernities. Loosely inspired by the shadi wala haar (South Asian wedding garland), it reinterprets its celebratory function, inviting viewers to explore the desires of those still embedded in desi kitsch. A love letter and homage, An Ode to Xennial Friendships captures the in-between existence of a generation shaped by both tradition and transformation.