Karachi Circular Railway Featured at Ryerson Image Centre

The multi-channel installation, KCR, stemming from the Pulitzer Center-supported project, The Karachi Circular Railway by Ivan Sigal, in on display at the Ryerson Image Centre gallery in Toronto, Canada, until Sunday, April 8, 2018. Tours of this installation are given daily at 2:30 pm. 

Sigal's multi-channel installation spans nine different screens and gives viewers the chance to explore the abandoned commuter train that once connected the divergent neighborhoods of Pakistan's largest metropolitan area. Sigal compiled video, photography, field notes, and audio recordings while walking the entire length of the railway, now all a part of this multimedia display.

The Karachi Circular Railway first opened in 1969, during an era of optimistic urban planning that included model townships and ambitious construction projects for urban poor and recent migrants. Today, land mafias that are tied by political patronage, ethnic and sectarian affiliation control communities and their development, and apportion resources in the context of political violence.

Sigal is the executive director of Global Voices, a non-profit online global citizen media initiative, and supports similar projects around the world. He spent over ten years in the former Soviet Union and Asia, where he designed and implemented dozens of media assistance projects focusing on conflict, humanitarian disaster, and transitional societies. He has lived, worked and traveled in over 80 countries.