Join this online talk with journalist and UAL CRiSAP PhD student Syma Tariq, who will share research undertaken during a residency at the British School of Athens, arranged by UAL's Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon Colleges of Arts and Desgin.

The talk will explore the role played by Greek masterplanner, Constantinos Doxiadis, in the urban development of the nascent nation state of Pakistan in the 1950s and 60s.

Talk synopsis:

Starting with material from the private archives of Constantinos Doxiadis and his ideas of ‘entopia’, my project, currently emerging out of my BSA residency, questions notions of 'development' and 'belonging' through the urban integration of millions of Partition refugees in Pakistan. Pakistan was not born a developing nation – it became one through its encounter with an army of experts and funding bodies, new international alliances and policy practices that all facilitated a new way of making sense of the world.

The tension between post-colonial nationalism and 'development' in the case of Pakistan is exemplified through Doxiadis' role as the master planner of its new capital, Islamabad. One of the biggest reasons for moving the capital to Islamabad from Karachi on 14 August 1967 was the sheer number of refugees in Karachi – a place that could no longer be conceived as a modern capital city. Doxiadis made Pakistan a poster child for global development, masterminding plans for buildings, roads, mosques and universities, but crucially, people – who not only had to live in a new country, but ‘belong’ to it too.

Booking

Please book your place using the online form here, in order to receive the event streaming link

About

The British School at Athens residency is organised by Research at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon and is offered annually to practice-based PhD students at UAL. Successful applicants receive a residency in Greece, supported by a bursary and with studio and accommodation provided.