In plain sight
Din Dahaaṛay · دِن دَہاڑے
An ongoing cyanotype research-led art practice documenting the various bodies found along the Lyari River in Karachi.
In the wake of the Lyari Expressway’s construction, the river’s course has been altered by pillars, blocks, cement, and a 16.5 km highway, reshaping the natural ecology of the riverscape and rendering many forms of life as haunted versions of their past selves.
Yet the river still flows, carrying sewage, stormwater, animal remains, and signs of the human activity that continues around its shrinking waters.
Through photographic and material traces of infrastructural, human, vegetal, animal, water, and microbial bodies, the installation imagines the river as a body of its own, made of misfitting, decaying, and warring fragments.
This project was supported by a development grant from the Elements Research Kitchen at NYU Abu Dhabi, under the mentorship of Professors Katia Arfara and Dale Hudson in 2025. Alongside cyanotype, a multi-channel video is currently under production which will be presented as a site-specific installation.
I am also currently experimenting with the materiality of muslin cloth and Agar as it reacts with cyanotype and water and vegetal samples collected along the banks of the Lyari River.
Acid-free mixed media paper, 16 x 24 cm, 2026
Garden East interchange on the Lyari Expressway.
From concrete
Sludge near Imtiaz Superstore, Gulshan e Iqbal.
From concrete
Transportation trucks near Gharibabad.
From concrete
Overhead bridge near Luckyone Mall.
From concrete
A dog deliberates whether it should cross the river.
From Stray dogs and more lives
A headless carcass of a cow dumped in the ‘open drain’ of Lyari River.
From Stray dogs and more lives
A dog stands under the shadow of a tree after scavenging his food from the river nearby.
From Stray dogs and more lives
Stray dog near Karachi Harbor repair workshops.
From Stray dogs and more lives
Two fishermen wash their nets at Karachi Harbor, at the southern edge of the Lyari River.
From Water body(s)
A construction official measuring the riverbed near the river for future construction activity for residential purposes.
From Water body(s)
A mosquito net tent on the riverbed of Lyari, belonging to the many unhoused people settled along its banks.
From Water body(s)
Kids play around a concrete block at the riverbank.
From Water body(s)
Net-makers at Kala Pani, Karachi Harbor
From Water body(s)
Leisure under the shadow of the expressway's pillars.
From Water body(s)
Three birds drinking water from the polluted waters of the Lyari river.
From remaining traces
The dried riverbed of Lyari near the industrial units concentrated along the Lyari Expressway.
From remaining traces
Weed plants and sunlight reflecting off of the dark waters of the Lyari River.
From remaining traces
Lyari is derived from the word Lyar, an old tree that used to grow in graveyards and along the riverbanks.
From remaining traces
A titled fishing boat during low tide at the edge of where Lyari meets the sea.
From refracted fantasies of a city born anew
Makeshift houses reflected off the surface of the Lyari river.
From refracted fantasies of a city born anew