Karachi is one of the largest and fastest-growing cities in the world. It emerged in just a few decades from a mostly agricultural society and is now a city of roughly fifteen million people. The accelerated expansion however created violent rifts in the urban fabric reminding us of the impossibility of the metropolis.
Remembering You the City of Lights looks at city making from the perspective of a future past showing a desolate landscape and occasional human traces over two large projections.

The fake archeological artefact resembles a fictional object of worship that is based on 3D scans of the wave breakers of China Port, Karachi. These wave breakers are what made the city possible in the first place and protects it from the rough sea. They also mark the beginning of civilisation in the area and simultaneously the end of ecology. The artefact is shown as an archeological object that has been rotting for centuries and then partly been reconstructed.
By zooming out of the now and looking at the city from the perspective of a future past, the work is offering a non-anthropocentric view of reality that transcends our traditional understanding of time and earth magnitude events. In order to really understand the environmental disaster of city making we have to learn to see reality from a non-human perspective and train our senses to see the interconnectedness that is leading up to the present moment and the future it will possibly end in.
Additional credits
Many thanks to the students of the University of Karachi Fine Arts Department fortheir help in collective 3D scans and knowledge about their city: Alina Ali, Aumama Asif, Behram Farooqui, Hafsah Taqi Khan, Samiya Iqbal, AishaMalik, Yaruk Mehmood, Maham Mirza, Wajiha

Digital art assistance: Joshua Alena Mallek