More than me. Less than you
Nomadic sound piece and video installation / 2012
Developed from conversations with artists met in Karachi, Pakistan.
Exhibited at: Streets of Karachi in 2012 (sound piece), Port Grand Gallery in Karachi in 2012 (video installation)
and Clark House in Mumbai in 2015 (film)
Supported by: VASL, Karachi, Pakistan (part of Triangle Arts Trust).
More than me. Less than you edited to one screen film presented at Clark House (Mumbai, 2015):
Documentation of the installation at Port Grand Gallery:
‘Magda Fabianczyk – who also installed two video installations at Port Grand on Sunday – monitored a roving truck that travelled around Karachi, blaring from speakers the Urdu script of a female voice reciting a text that Fabianczyk produced on the workshop. This text, like her video installations, examined issues of class, privilege and communication, and like much of Fabianczyk’s work, was based on an attempt to establish dialogues and convivial relationships between disparate groups of people, therefore examining issues of illusion, intervention, privilege, and understanding‘
Gemma Sharp, VASL Collective, 2011
Stills from the video documentation of the work presented at Port Grand Gallery in Karachi. The first screen showed the text both in English and Urdu, while the second one documented the work on the move:
More than me. Less than you was a sound performance that took place in Karachi in 2012 and which documentation was edited into a video installation (2012) and later into a film for one screen (2015). It was developed during one month residency at VASL and travelled through the streets of Karachi, Pakistan, stopping at various residential, official and commercial sites.
The idea for the work derived from discussions with Pakistani artists, with whom I spent one month sharing a flat in Karachi. We shared our experiences of places we have lived in or have traveled through, making visible implications of one’s own culture/ethnicity/ social or economical class or nationality. Noticing systems of hierarchy that affected peoples ability to communicate and move freely not only across national borders, but also within one city or even one street or room I wrote a text, that was translated into Urdu by Narjis Mirza. I recorded Narjis reading the Urdu version of the text and the recording was played from four large speakers placed on the pickup truck that was driven around Karachi for one day. Political messages and advertisements were often delivered in similar manner in Pakistan, however female voice was unusual to use. The work invited people to reflect on their own social status hoping to evoke feelings of empathy and togetherness. People gathered around the vehicle when parked and bus drivers and bikers often followed it while on the move.