A feature story on how Multan’s centuries-old blue pottery is being carried from workshop practice into training centres, digital markets and contemporary cultural spaces.
By Muhammad Waqas
In Multan, blue pottery is still made through a slow grammar of hand, clay, glaze and fire. The city’s turquoise and cobalt surfaces are familiar across Pakistan: on decorative plates, shrine-inspired tiles, vases, lamps, planters and panels that carry the visual memory of southern Punjab. Yet behind that familiar beauty is a less settled question. Can a centuries-old craft survive as more than a souvenir in a market increasingly shaped by fast production, online retail and international design taste?
Multani blue pottery, often associated with Kashigari, has always been more than ornament. Its floral patterns, geometric borders and glazed surfaces reflect a long history of movement across Persia, Iran, Central Asia, China and the subcontinent. In Multan, those influences became local: tied to shrine architecture, workshop discipline, clay preparation and hand-painted repetition. The craft’s strength lies not only in its history, but in its ability to remain recognisable while adapting to new spaces.
That adaptation is now visible in different places at once. In traditional workshops, ustads and artisans continue to produce familiar forms for local buyers. At training centres, institutions are trying to connect skill with livelihood. On digital platforms, blue pottery is sold as homeware and gifting. In exhibition settings, artists and designers are testing whether the craft can move from decoration into contemporary cultural display.
TEVTA’s role is important in this wider picture. Its official craft platform says handmade ceramics and blue pottery products are produced by artisans and trainees in Multan and Shahdara, linking technical training with market access. TEVTA also lists the Institute of Blue Pottery Development in Multan among its display locations, alongside facilities in Lahore and Shahdara. These efforts matter because craft traditions rarely survive through admiration alone. They need young trainees, facilities, buyers, and a sense that skill can become a livelihood.
The challenge is that institutional training and market display can preserve technique, but they cannot by themselves create cultural value. A craft survives fully only when society understands the intelligence behind it. A blue plate is not merely a plate. It carries clay selection, drying time, drawing, pigment control, glazing and firing. A slight imbalance in heat or moisture can change the outcome. A line that looks simple may be the product of years of correction.
This is where the work of Nauman Mirza offers a contemporary example. Mirza, whose practice draws from Multan’s workshop culture and the Ustad-Shagird tradition, approaches blue pottery and related heritage forms not as fixed objects, but as a living visual language. His vessels, panels and lighting pieces use familiar motifs and surfaces, but place them in settings where space, light and viewing angle become part of the work.
In his hands, a ceramic vessel is not only tableware, and a panel is not only wall decoration. These objects become part of an exhibition experience. The viewer is asked to notice the curve of the form, the density of the line, the depth of the glaze and the rhythm of repetition. This does not remove the craft from its roots. Rather, it asks whether inherited technique can be read with the seriousness usually reserved for painting, sculpture or architecture.
One of the more notable aspects of Mirza’s recent work is his experimentation with vegan and cruelty-free alternatives in camel-skin-inspired lighting. Traditional camel-skin lamps are closely associated with Multan’s craft identity, but contemporary audiences increasingly ask questions about animal welfare, sustainability and material transparency. By exploring alternative materials while preserving the visual memory of the lamp, Mirza’s practice shows that ethical adaptation does not have to mean cultural erasure.
This balance is central to the future of Pakistani craft. The country has many strong regional traditions: Sindhi Ajrak, Chiniot woodwork, Balochi embroidery, Kashmiri shawls, Swati carving, truck art, calligraphy, ralli quilts and miniature painting among them. Each has market potential, but each also faces the danger of being reduced to a decorative symbol. Once craft becomes only a lifestyle product, the maker can disappear behind branding.
That risk is growing as Pakistani crafts move into broader markets. Recent reporting on Pakistan’s handicraft potential has noted that blue pottery, woodwork, embroidery and other regional crafts remain underused as export assets. Export guidance for Pakistani ceramic products and glazed tiles also points to international demand, but the requirements are practical as much as aesthetic: consistent quality, safe packaging, documentation, pricing, delivery and buyer confidence. European and other design-conscious markets may value handmade objects, but they also expect professional standards.
For Multani blue pottery, this means the next stage cannot rely only on beauty. The craft needs better documentation of techniques, clearer attribution for artisans, stronger links between workshops and design schools, and more serious participation in exhibitions and cultural diplomacy. Hotels, airports, embassies, galleries and cultural centres could present such work with far more ambition than casual decoration, but only if the makers and their knowledge remain visible.
This is why artists such as Mirza, institutional efforts such as TEVTA’s training and display work, and older workshop lineages should not be seen separately. They are part of the same ecosystem. The workshop preserves discipline. The training centre creates entry points. The market provides livelihood. The artist expands interpretation. If any one of these is missing, the craft becomes vulnerable.
Multan’s blue pottery has survived for centuries because it is not merely pigment on clay. It is memory disciplined by hand and transformed by fire. Its future will depend on whether Pakistan can treat it not as a nostalgic object, but as a serious cultural practice with economic, artistic and diplomatic value. The blue of Multan still has a market. More importantly, it still has a language. The task now is to ensure that the people who speak it are heard.