KARACHI

is the city where my mother spent her childhood, the largest city in Pakistan and one of the most populous cities in the world. I was fortunate to visit often while growing up, and the city has exerted a profound influence on my interest in the pace of change and the conditions of housing in the world’s fastest-growing cities. This interest forms the basis for my current research project, Self-Help Housing, which will include a deep dive into informal settlements in Karachi’s periphery. 

My reinterpretation of footage shot by my brother-in-law Andreas Burgess greatly benefitted my 2016 film The Quito Papers: Towards an Open City, a documentary that I produced and directed with Dom Bagnato, with the collaboration of filmmakers in Beijing, Karachi, Lagos, London, Mexico City, New York, Quito, São Paulo, and more. 

In 2014, I co-curated a posthumous exhibition of my mother’s printmaking work in the excellent Karachi gallery, Koel. Download the catalog I wrote and designed here. (And contact me if you’re interested in buying some of her artwork!)