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| Interestingly, the Urdu signage appears more decipherable, possibly owing to its proximity to my native Farsi. Among these signs, I always notice the one in Urdu that reads "International Departures" ( بین الاقوامی روانگی ). It strikes me that translating this sign into Farsi and then from Farsi to English gives it a new dimension, completely altering its dry, formal, and definitive airport signage character. The Urdu term "روانگی" translates into Farsi as "روان بودن," which means "fluidity." Similarly, "بین الاقوامی" becomes "میان دو قوم یا طایفه" in Farsi, signifying "amidst ethnics". Consequently, the sign for "International Departures" now takes on a literal translation of “میان دو قوم یا طایفه روان بودن.” "Entangle Ethnics Fluidity"
Here, I reflect on my itinerancy and entangled ethnic fluidity as an educator, simultaneously navigating the diverse educational territories in Karachi and London. It's a chronicle of my experiences, challenges, learnings and failures while teaching in these two locations. Being an educator is not merely an attachment to my artistic practices; rather, it is an integral part of my intellectual and artistic characteristics. I don’t teach to produce new artwork with students. I believe that creating a collective artwork with students can be challenging and problematic, as the role of a teacher often involves the need to structure and guide ideas. In my classroom, the discussions, debates, lectures, and, perhaps most significantly, assignments are not rigidly structured but rather reflect my enthusiasm, moments of uncertainty, desires, and failures – questions and challenges that I share with my students.
I use the umbrella term artistic re-search to describe what I do both in my teaching and my arts. My pedagogical journey attempts to explore the potential of doing research through art and by art. While I refer to it as "artistic re-search" for now, you are welcome to employ different terminology if you prefer. For me, this is not a matter of pitting academic disciplines against each other, nor is it an attempt to define artistic research, as jargon has already done. Instead, I aim to delve into the potential of artistic practices as an alternative possibility for knowledge creation and re-search. This knowledge may emerge from the depths of one's intuition, moments of joy, periods of sorrow, or even times of profound despair.
Can education be our salvation? I must confess that I don't have an alternative solution readily available. Despite my extensive criticism of the profound shortcomings of the neoliberal educational system, which has prioritised marketing, commodification, mimicry and the institutionalisation of learning over genuine education, I still hold firm to the belief that the act of teaching, sharing, and engaging in class discussions can have a transformative impact. By posing the question of whether education can save us, I attempt to position myself within two seemingly disparate realms: one in the South, namely Karachi, a port city originally envisioned as the "Liverpool of the Indian Ocean" and the closest port to mainland Europe during the colonial era; the other being London, the capital of the empire and the epitome of metropolitan sociability.[1]
In my role as an educator within the realm of art, I have consciously strived to navigate the false divisions that delineate concepts of "here" and "there," even seeking to challenge the very notion of such boundaries. I see myself as someone who traverses borders, embodying the essence of an itinerant educator. This mobility is a privilege and an advantage that comes with my itinerant status, the passport, one that I never take for granted. Whenever I present my proof of residency in the Global North at passport control, it is an essential reminder of this privilege. This ongoing act of legally crossing borders inherently inspires me to engage in a comparative critical analysis of the contrasting geographies of "here" and "there." It provides me with fresh insights into the territorialised experiences of the global North and South, as well as the distinctions between metropolitan and colonial sociability. Whether journeying from Karachi to London or vice versa. Indeed, once you have crossed a border, there is no way to "uncross" it, forever changing one's perspective and understanding.
My aim isn't to bridge these territories, as they are inherently interconnected. Instead, I have aimed to explore how to navigate the line, walk along the border, and maintain a delicate balance. I'm not attempting to create a bridge between them; in fact, one is a direct outcome of the other—the British-built Karachi following General Napier's invasion of Sindh in 1843. It feels as though I'm not merely crossing borders but traversing the very existence of the border. Here, I try to balance the pasts and futures of these territories; I am a foreigner of both lands – a guest, a funambulist. Poised delicately as much as possible atop the slender border, weaving a dance of equilibrium, every step a tender negotiation between soaring and not falling.
My pedagogical journey was related to exploring the city of Karachi as a live archive and digging into the colonial archive in the British Library and Maritime Museum in London to collect documents about Karachi within the colonial archive. Karachi is the site-specific location for my exploration, a point of departure and a point of return. It is a location that suffers from the claustrophobia of colonial and national formation, the failed capital of the post-colonial nation, the place for the organic crisis, the intersection of social, economic and environmental crisis, the urban hell, the future that we will all live in soon. The organic crisis shapes its history and identity and repeatedly leaves the city and its people alone. As we grapple with the daunting task of decolonising our history, the promise of a post-colonial national reformation appears increasingly elusive, a mirage that fades into obscurity.
The separation between these two territories is not just geographical but epistemological: the way that we know and don’t know the history, the way that history has been invisibilised, the face blindness of history, the prosopagnosia. I physically, mentally and discursively walk in and out of these separated territories. This itinerancy shapes my methodology as an itinerant speculative educator, exploring a kaleidoscope of places, stories and people.
The act of a funambulist is evident even in my writing – writing these words in English. The fact that I am writing to you in English already falsifies what I wanted to tell you. My subject, as Gustavo Perez Firmat describes, is how to explain to you that I don't belong to English thought. Translating from one language to another is akin to the act of funambulism, a delicate tightrope walk that inevitably gives birth to a new phenomenon, somehow detached from its original essence.
English has been the primary language of instruction and communication during my teaching in Karachi. This circumstance stemmed from the influence of the British colonial administration, which altered the administrative language in India from Farsi to Urdu and English in 1837. Consequently, all my students in Karachi have achieved proficiency in the colonial language, as their high school education predominantly revolved around English. Many of them completed their education through the Cambridge Boards, where using Urdu was penalised with negative grades. This pressure to master English led them to employ more intricate sentence structures and expand their vocabulary, enabling them to effectively engage with and convey complex theoretical arguments unique to art students. This phenomenon became even more apparent when working with my South Asian students at Goldsmith, where we discussed their assimilation into a new culture and society as newcomers despite their superior English skills, sometimes even more advanced than native English-speaking students. The knowledge, or lack thereof, of English language proficiency in Karachi is essential in creating significant class divisions. It can be employed as a means of intimidation against minority individuals attempting to access elite educational institutions, often grappling with imperfect English skills. [2]
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