SHARIQ
SHAH

RESEARCH

DIGITAL GANDHARA IS AN INTER-INSTITUTIONAL WEB ARCHIVE FOR EXPLORING ANCIENT BUDDHIST SITES AND ARTIFACTS [HARVARD CAMLAB, 2024]

SILENT SUMMER IS A COMMUNITY SCIENTIST’S DIGITAL GUIDEBOOK TO THREATENED MIGRATORY BIRDS ON CAPE ANN, MA [HARVARD OFFICE FOR URBANIZATION, 2024]

MY RIVER MAKES NUMBERS MY RIVER MAKES LOVE IS A LECTURE ON COLONIAL CARTOGRAPHIC DATA AND INTERSPECIES KINSHIP ON THE INDUS RIVER [UCLA HAMMER MUSEUM, 2023]

MANGROVE ECOLOGIES IS A CATALOG OF REFORESTATION KNOWLEDGE IN THE INDUS DELTA [HARVARD DEPARTMENT OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, 2022]

HIYOKECHI IS A SPATIAL READING OF TOKYO’S PUBLIC PARKS WITHIN THE HISTORY OF DISASTER MITIGATION [HARVARD REAL ESTATE, 2023]

OASIS IS A SATELLITE IMAGING BASED MODEL FOR ECOLOGICALLY-ATTUNED MIGRATION IN THE SAHEL [SPATIAL DESIGN FOR CLIMATE MIGRATION, 2024]

WEATHER ISLANDS IS A MODEL FOR EROSION-DRIVEN LANDSCAPES IN RIVERINE ECOSYSTEMS [CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY, 2019]

INDUS ATLAS IS A MAPPING AND HISTORIOGRAPHY OF WATER-MONITORING TECHNOLOGIES IN THE INDUS BASIN [HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN, 2022]

FILM

TENDING IS A SONIC FILM ON PRACTICES OF LAND REPAIR AND CARE WITHIN THE FLOOD ZONES OF GLACIAL LAKES IN THE ROLWALING VALLEY OF NEPAL 

HYMNS FOR GLACIA IS A FILM DOCUMENTING THE LOSS OF GLACIAL LANDS AND LIFE ALONG THE KARAKORUM HIGHWAY IN NORTHERN PAKISTAN [MIT, 2024]


FORENSIC WATERS, or Ask the River


Bachelor of Architecture Thesis

Carnegie Mellon University
School of Architecture

(2022)
This project ties two parallel moments in colonial history: the project of water management and the project of the archaeological record. Such histories begin in the same period, but have not been spatially related. Under the imposition of the first modern project of water management, ancient cities were flooded, relics were airlifted to higher ground, and excavation sites were rendered unworkable.
As a result, it is precisely when ancient artifacts begin to enter the archaeological record that they come under conquest of the dam building project. Thus, the construction of infrastructure in this era began the erasure of an ancient heritage and the production of a modern new in a single sweep. The thesis situates these concurrent tales in a single territory: the ancient city of Mohenjo Daro. Its waters, now saline and silty, are material records of the colonial project. By looking closely at the river as the residue of conquest, the project traces these colonial erasures to contemporary practices of repair. It asks the river to narrate the past, for a reparative future.