Narrative
Interrupted

(2017)

Guerrilla paint job, public intervention on Seaview Beach, Karachi

“Latest weather report: Cyclone Nilofer has fizzled out and weakened into a deep depression
on Friday. Though it is moving towards Gujarat coast, it is expected to weaken further into a well-marked low pressure over the northeast Arabian Sea. This means that the system is less likely to make a landfall, neither in Gujarat nor in Pakistan, and may die out in the Arabian Sea itself.“


Before dawn on a September morning, a crew of 10 hid from security to paint a beached ship gold. The ship had washed up
from the Arabian Sea onto Seaview beach before the cyclone. Like
the many unkept promises made to Karachi, Nilofer never arrived.

The morning of arrival, a city sick with dreaming, awoke to the spectre of a gold ship. It was transformed into a site of public interventions and news reports
for months afterward.