Farewell Weekend-Good Bye Brunton 2

Farewell Weekend-Good Bye Brunton 2 at the Goethe-Institut Karachi

Goethe-Intitut Pakistan has been located in a beautiful pre-partition Villa in Civil Lines in Karachi. On the last weekend of June 2022, we bid a farewell to the space by doing a two-day event open to public, students and friends of Goethe-Institut Pakistan.
The aim of this event was not just to bid farewell to the premises but also to revive and remind people of our cultural activities – of bringing people together with not just performances and dance but also with a topical discussion on urban development.
 

Film Screenings
The film programe focused on the Barcelona pavilion, an architectural masterpiece, and traced the special bonds and significance of houses for their inhabitants and heirs. The films shown were: A House in Berlin by Cynthia Beatt; Mies on Scene / Barcelona in Two Acts by Pep Martín & Xavi Campreciós; The Ruins / Khandhar by Mrinal Sen

Talk – Vertical vs Horizontal
Kumail Ali Shareef and the architect Arif Belgaumi discussed the radical changes in the urban structure of Karachi consisting of 13 independent administrative districts, at the invitation of the architect and social activist Marvi Mazhar. Professor Sophie Wolfrum from Munich broadened the view insofar as the change of the skyline from "horizontal land use to vertical infrastructure" not only in Karachi, but worldwide under the pressure of real estate speculation leads to partly inhuman distortions and price spirals

DJ Night
Every cultural event, especially of the Goethe-Institut, is incomplete without the universal language of music!
DJ Talha Asim from Karachi - TOLLCRANE and DJ Faiqa provided good mood, music and dance.
There is no better way to say goodbye to a room than to animate it with music and movement!

Dance performance - Lost in Translocation
This site-specific, multidisciplinary performance, toured the rooms and escapes of the old villa over two evenings as part of the farewell celebrations. The performance was commissioned to mark the farewell to the Goethe-Institut's longstanding residency in Brunton 2 Karachi. Using dance, music and theatre, the moving performance explores belonging to space and time: for example, the journey of all those dispossessed, human or otherwise, who made their home in the once tiny fishing village; "Transformation" creates inspiration at the intersection of emotion and space; "Me, Where?" associates seemingly mundane actions psychologically rooted to place; the final piece, "Me, Here...", performed on the second day, explores architecture with a very different sensory experience, live visual art.
Concept and choreography by Amna Mawaz Khan and Imran Siddiqui (director)