Rewilding Karachi: Mahera Omer

In this episode, Mahera Omar, filmmaker and co-founder of PAWS, discusses a shift in perspective towards ecological tidiness disorder, emphasizing the benefits of leaving natural elements undisturbed for both humans and non-humans and welcoming environments for diverse species. 

This 9-part podcast series brings together the experiences of resident researchers and our guest speakers, including architects, designers, scholars, and activists from across the globe and Karachi to discuss novel interfaces for human and nonhuman interactions developed during the residency. Together, the podcast guests look back at the residents’ research and creative encounters through playful forms of participatory behaviors and engagement strategies.

In each episode, residency curator Taqi Shaheen, along with artistic director Usman Haque and design advisor Ling Tan, discuss legal, cultural, social, and political frameworks for human and non-human interactions with the resident artists and guest speakers through the lens of innovative projects developed during the residency. 

For more information please visit residency.iobm.edu.pk

What is Artistic Research Residency Podcast?

How can we design strategies for human and non-human interactions that would help us reshape our cities into a much more sustainable engine of survival, rather than the socially-constricting, energy-intensive, and life shortening beast that they are right now?

Karachi—a complex city that is already being disproportionately affected by climate change—presents an ideal context to explore this question. During the artistic research residency, RePlay: Reveries of an Urban Dreamland, resident researchers designed novel interfaces for interactions between citizens and their non-human co-inhabitants, such as trees, plants, animals, bees, seeds and other non-human species.

This 8-part podcast series brings together the experiences of resident researchers and our guest speakers, including architects, designers, scholars, and activists from across the globe and Karachi to discuss novel interfaces developed during the residency through playful forms of participatory behaviours and engagement strategies.

In each episode, residency curator Taqi Shaheen, along with artistic director Usman Haque and design advisor Ling Tan, discuss legal, cultural, social and political frameworks for human and non-human interactions with the resident artists and guest speakers through the lens of innovative projects developed during the residency.

This artistic research residency is a collaboration between the Institute of Business Management and Umbrellium, generously supported by the British Council.