In Pakistani culture, Urdu poetry is recited in everyday conversation when mundane language fails. This practice is normal and celebrated, poetry speaks beyond the literal and beyond convention. Khāt is a mail-art project that brings this magic of discovering extraordinary meaning in everyday life through poetry and cross-cultural translation. This conversation with photographer Khalid Ibrahim and publisher Amira Hegazy explores how we can translate cultural experiences, meaning, and interaction through photography, language, and printed material. 

Khalid Ibrahim is a photographer based in Chicago whose creative work centers on photography, language, and the art of human connection. He is particularly drawn to slower, more deliberate forms of communication—handwritten letters, the layered beauty of the Urdu language, and the quiet intimacy captured through a camera lens. His work explores how we reach across distance and difference to truly see and understand one another. Khalid's projects have taken him around the world, where themes of connection and communication continue to emerge through both his artistic and commercial lifestyle photography work.

Amira Hegazy makes images, experiences, objects, books, and texts. Based in Chicago, she teaches design practice and theory at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her research investigates diverse design legacies and Love as an organizing principle in community-driven design. Combining play and scholarly methods — Amira's work is multimodal — shifting output to express the most honest form the idea can hold. Beyond her individual expression, her practice includes collaborative projects with other artists and scholars to create unique prints, books, and exhibitions.

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