VXR Festival Brings Virtual Reality Art to Pakistan

The VXR Festival has opened in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, bringing virtual reality art to Pakistan in a travelling showcase that features the work of around 70 artists from Pakistan and abroad. Visitors can put on a headset and step inside digital artworks, instead of simply looking at paintings on a wall.

The festival arrived in the twin cities on Friday, 13 November 2026, with two events on its first day. In the morning, artists met students at the National College of Arts (NCA) in Rawalpindi. In the evening, the Islamabad edition was formally opened at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) by Jean-Noël Poirier, the Ambassador of France to Pakistan.

A Festival Without a Fixed Home

VXR stands for Virtual and Extended Reality. The festival is organised by the Lahore Digital Arts Festival team, and it has no permanent venue. It travels from city to city, setting up immersive art experiences in each place it visits.

Before reaching the twin cities, the festival ran a week-long programme in Lahore. After this weekend, it will move on to Karachi. The idea is simple: take new kinds of art to audiences in different cities, rather than asking everyone to travel to one gallery.

The Islamabad edition is called Between the Prompts v2. It has been curated by festival director Dr Najam Ul Assar and Sarah Rajper. The twin cities programme will continue through the weekend at Alliance Française d’Islamabad.

What Visitors Can Experience

At NCA Rawalpindi, six artists from Pakistan, the United States, Spain and France spoke with students about the link between art and technology. They were Asma Kazmi from the USA, Faqeha Nadeem and Zarin Gul from Pakistan, Lola Zoido from Spain, and Sandrine Daumier and Marie Lienhard from France.

Students from Fatima Jinnah Women University and other institutions attended the session, along with students from Muskan Orphanage House. They also tried an exhibition of immersive artworks, using VR headsets to explore digital environments made by artists from Pakistan and abroad.

At the PNCA inauguration in the evening, diplomats, cultural representatives and members of the public tried the same virtual reality works. For many visitors, it was their first chance to experience art this way.

The festival encourages people to take part in the art, not just watch it. As the organisers put it, audiences should engage with new technology as participants in artistic expression, critical thinking and cultural exchange — not merely as consumers.

Why It Matters for Pakistani Art

Festival director Dr Najam Ul Assar said the edition asks an important question about who makes this kind of art. “Extended reality usually reaches us as a finished product, built elsewhere and sold here,” he said. “This edition asks what happens when artists from Rawalpindi, Lahore, Paris, Madrid and Berkeley take hold of the medium, and the headset becomes a space for memory, critique and play rather than consumption.”

That point matters because virtual reality is still a new art form in Pakistan. Most people here meet it through games or products made abroad. VXR puts Pakistani artists in the same show as international ones, and lets local students talk directly with the people making the work.

Tülin Khalid of Alliance Française d’Islamabad described the festival as an invitation to look “between the lines” of technology. Human imagination, creativity and connection, she said, remain at the heart of how people shape the future.

Pakistan’s cultural scene has been busy this month, with art exhibitions and festivals opening in several cities. The appetite for live cultural events is clearly growing — as shown by the news that An independent film festival doubles its submissions in a year.

What Happens Next

The twin cities edition runs through the weekend at Alliance Française d’Islamabad, before the festival travels to Karachi. With around 70 artists involved, the show covers a wide mix of styles, from dreamlike digital landscapes to works built around memory and identity.

For visitors, the message is simple: bring curiosity, put on the headset, and step inside the art. For Pakistan’s art world, the festival is a sign that virtual reality is no longer a distant idea — it is here, and local artists are already shaping it.

Sources: The Nation — VXR Festival opens with VR Art showcases at NCA and PNCA.