In recent decades, the landscape of Karachi has become a site of anxiety and insecurity with regards to safety. This has caused a shift in urban infrastructure to include surveillance as a key feature. The result of this inclusion impacts the accessibility of public spaces in Karachi, where infringement of these spaces by security infrastructure acts as an exclusionary barricade. The top-down approach to urban planning and architecture has led to a critique not only in scholarship but also through art as a form of resistance. Artists, such as Seema Nusrat, are concerned with highlighting how the introduction of barriers and barricades, as security features in architecture, lead to policing and incarceration of citizens’ rights to the city in direct relation to their bodies and being. This article reflects on how Seema Nusrat’s artwork falls under the category of critical resistance owing to its social commentary on exclusionary architecture¹ and discourse on rights to the city².

Henri Lefebvre in his book on Rights to the City (1968) elaborates on the rights citizens have over urban landscapes, as explained by Mark Purell. ³ These rights are communal and in essence they call for a reframing of decision-making in cities, whereby it becomes a process involving urban inhabitants in defining urban space. ⁴ Therefore, this idea is summarized by Lefebvre as the concept, ‘lived space’, which is an individual’s experience of space in routine life. This points to citizens navigating cityscapes and how that is altered by the space they can or cannot access. The rights to the city enfranchise people in decision-making about the urban space, expanding this arena beyond the state structure. Capitalism plays a crucial role here as well, with stakeholders such as firms and real-estate companies that invest capital into urban spaces. In a manner, this provides urban inhabitants of a certain class and social capital a voice in the production of urban space.

However, this is limiting to citizens from marginalized backgrounds, economically and socially. For Lefebvre, this enfranchisement should be accessible to those who inhabit the city as their lived experience of the cityscape legitimizes their rights to the city. ⁵ The right to the city involves two kinds of rights; the right to participation and the right to appropriation. The right to participation calls for urban inhabitants to become active participants in decision making about the city. The right to appropriation is a concept that directly deals with the theme of this paper. Appropriation includes the rights of citizens to be able to physically access and use urban spaces that is already produced but also the right to produce urban space to meet their needs.⁶ This idea of full usage and occupation calls for urban spaces to be constructed in ways that ensure this is possible. The concept of private property, exclusive to the city’s inhabitants, goes against the idea of the right to appropriation.

Seema Nusrat’s exhibitions such as Proposal Towards a New Architecture and New Urban Landscapes displayed in 2016 or the more recent, Brave New World are social commentary on the sociopolitical and violent context of Karachi in recent decades that have led to barricades becoming a feature of the city. Nusrat examines the rampant presence of Hesco Bastion’s outside buildings, a common sight in the city, that create a silent divide between those who have influence and those who do not. These political and visual signifiers of stratification highlight the claustrophobic environment the need for safety has introduced into urban life.

This can further be explored through Sarah Schindler’s scholarship on exclusionary architecture which argues against the discriminatory practices in urban planning. ⁷ Schindler discusses that certain features in city planning encourage an exclusionary built environment that acts as a regulatory body against inhabitants of the city. ⁸  While the perceived purpose of features in our physical environment are often regarded as an aesthetic device, they can also act as a preventive measure towards certain people occupying that space. For example, a bench with an armrest in the middle would be regarded as a design choice yet it acts as a barrier for homeless people to sleep on it. In a way, these features of architecture control our behavior through fences and barricades by constraining us.

This is a form of regulation that hinders the mobility of some groups in favor of others; architecture that is inherently exclusionary. In architectural practices, it is not so easy to outright ban the occupation of space by certain groups who are most often poor (a judgement passed on aesthetic appearances); however, the addition of barriers makes it physically difficult for certain individuals to access spaces such as parks.⁹ The addition of such features is represented as a safety measure, but it must be questioned who is discriminated against because of security. Putting a fence around a park can be portrayed as protecting children of a community but often this fence acts as a prohibition for working class men to enter the park and loiter. This is a problematic form of surveillance, physical and symbolic, where city inhabitants are scrutinized, and their mobility is regulated.

The landscape of Karachi is not shy from such atrocities as is made evident by the works exhibited by Nusrat. The employment of barricading in urban architecture is a regulator of accessibility in Karachi; a situation that has arisen due to the turbulent sociopolitical climate of the city in the past two decades. Haris Gazdar and Hussain Bux Mallah contextualize the evolution of violence in Karachi, providing us with an understanding of why the security concern in Karachi heightened.¹⁰ Violence in Karachi between 1988 and 2010 has occurred on a variety of levels from planned assassinations, strikes, kidnappings and suicide bombings. This violence has centers itself around certain events such as general elections, strikes and religious gatherings. ¹¹ Ethnicity has become a cause of conflict in Karachi as political parties affiliate with specific ethnic groups. The involvement of political parties in interparty rivalry and the standard notion of their corruption as led to a disdain amongst ethnic groups. The rampant violence brought about by political party rivalry has led to regulation in urban planning with regards to land use. ¹² It is the impact of this sociopolitical background that Nusrat’s art critiques.

Her artwork has highlighted the growing presence of barricades and barriers in the architecture of Karachi, to the extent that we no longer identify it as unordinary. This places her work under the banner of critical resistance; creative, thoughtful, and disruptive opposition to the dominant ideologies and practices in society by artists through their work. ¹³ In Future Facades-9, part of the exhibition Brave New World, Nusrat presents us with a metropolis that is synonymous with the yellow and black stripes of barricades found all over Karachi. The city as portrayed in this artwork has been consumed by the heightened insecurity of urban inhabitants calling for security.¹⁴ The burdened uncertainty that residents of Karachi face has led to them taking charge of their own personal security. However, this security is also mediated on basis of economic mobility where a sense of anxiety is rampant in upper class circles against certain ethnic backgrounds and lower income households. These infrastructures then also highlight the disconnect between inhabitants of the city. The familiarity one feels while gazing at this piece is also to be noted as it questions how normal barricades are perceived as.

Similarly, in Structural Studies (2017), Nusrat uses material to explore her narrative on barricades by using rope and metallic clips. The tightened grip of metallic pins on a soft material is a commentary on the constricting and suffocating nature of barricades that promote a claustrophobic urban environment enforced upon the gentler nuances of interactions in urban spaces signified by the soft material used. ¹⁵ These artworks and their respective exhibitions are focused on examining the way Karachi has evolved in recent years as a space that excludes certain groups. This exclusion can be carried out by those with financial upward mobility to protect their sources or by the state to prevent inhabitants from appropriating the urban space.

Critical pedagogy is concerned with examining everyday life as sites for political struggle and resistance.¹⁶ Critical art, therefore, engages with the ideological struggles by exposing and addressing oppression leading to emancipation. It is precisely this role that Nusrat’s artwork fulfils by bringing into the spotlight the context behind the appearance of barricades in Karachi. By exposing the underlying duplicity of their presence, Nusrat opens the floor for dialogue on exclusionary architecture. This places her work under the banner of critical resistance

The exploration of such themes in the artist’s art furthers the discourse on rights to appropriation and production, as Lefebvre argues, by allowing urban inhabitants to introduce their narrative and experience of the city into popular discourse. This is a form of resistance that has arisen due to the volatile climate of Karachi’s politics and social structure. Therefore, Nusrat’s work is critical resistance in the realm of rights to the city, opposing the exclusionary practices in urban planning in Karachi. An artist and urban inhabitant, producing and appropriating the urban space through her work.

The exploration of such themes in the artist’s art furthers the discourse on rights to appropriation and production, as Lefebvre argues, by allowing urban inhabitants to introduce their narrative and experience of the city into popular discourse. This is a form of resistance that has arisen due to the volatile climate of Karachi’s politics and social structure. Therefore, Nusrat’s work is critical resistance in the realm of rights to the city, opposing the exclusionary practices in urban planning in Karachi. An artist and urban inhabitant, producing and appropriating the urban space through her work.

Bibliography:

Abbasi, Numair A. “Keep Off the Grass.” Artnowpakistan.com. http://www.artnowpakistan.com/keep-off-the-grass/ Accessed May 9, 2021.

Alvares, Jovita. “Exhibition: The Surveilled City” Dawn.com, (2020). www.dawn.com/news/1595488 Accessed May 9, 2021

Darts, David. “Visual Culture Jam: Art, Pedagogy, and Creative Resistance.” Studies in Art Education, vol. 45, no. 4, (2004); 313–327. www.jstor.org/stable/1321067 Accessed April 11, 2021.

Gazdar, Haris, and Hussain Bux Mallah. “Informality and Political Violence in Karachi.” Urban Studies, vol. 50, no. 15, (2013); 3099–3115. www.jstor.org/stable/26145648 Accessed May 9, 2021

Schindler, Sarah. “Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination and Segregation Through Physical Design of the Built Environment.” Yale Law Journal, vol. 124, no. 6.

Purcell, Mark. “Excavating Lefebvre: The right to the city and its urban politics of the inhabitant”. GeoJournal, vol. 58, (2002); 99–108.