Karachi Radical Tour
Performance
(2014-2018)
Moving through the city, the Karachi Radical Tour traces multiple stories from resistance movements to explore the violence of displacement that has occurred in the process of "developing" the city and the nation from 1857 to present. The tour was developed as an experiment to perform and embody the counter geographies of the city, using the potential of story telling to stake a claim in spatial politics and urban memory.
Looking at Karachi only through its colonial and post colonial buildings often means conceding to the narratives of the powerful in history. However, this tour refuses the easy narratives made available to us by official histories and building projects. It weaves into the built environment, erased pasts and presents, to remember the marginalized histories of displacement. In tracing the violent displacement of Hindus and Sikhs, working-class refugees, students and indigenous communities, from the city, the tour explores how the modern city is constituted through the force of exclusion. The tour was first conceptualised with Shayan Rajani in 2014.
