Karsaz Flyover getting a makeover

Truck art-inspired beautification campaign to reach other areas of the city in the next phase

KARACHI: Twelve members of the Phool Patti team are working on the Karsaz Flyover on Sharae Faisal, giving it an all new look with truck art.

The Karachi beautification campaign, an initiative of former commissioner Shoaib Siddiqui in collaboration with Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture (IVS) and ‘I Am Karachi’, kick-started with truck artists from Phool Patti on December 29 last year. According to IVS fine arts department head Adeela Suleman, the second phase of the campaign ‘I Am Karachi’ has now begun with this project. Truck artists from Phool Patti, a group promoting truck art in Pakistan and abroad, began painting the flyover on January 1.



One of the founding members of ‘I Am Karachi’, Rumana Hassan, said the campaign will fully start from February by painting the walls of Karachi as they did on MT Khan Road last year. However, the area has yet to be decided. “We haven’t decided the area yet but in a few weeks’ time we will,” she said. Currently, the 12-member team from Phool Patti has to beautify the Karsaz Flyover on Sharae Faisal before January 15 with truck art. In the next phase, they will either decorate the Baloch Flyover or the Regent Flyover on Sharae Faisal. The founder and creative director of Phool Patti, Ali Salman Anchan, said, “This unique free-hand art actually originated in Pakistan and the team of Phool Patti is lucky to preserve and introduce it in America and Europe.”



Phool Patti chief executive officer (CEO) and head truck artist Haider Ali explained that every truck is different from the other and that’s the uniqueness of truck art of Pakistan. According to him, painting on trucks is their real bread earner but they also play their part in beautifying the city and the entire country. According to Anchan, Pakistanis have now started to recognise and acknowledge truck art. Ali said the Phool Patti team had also conducted workshops in the University of Southern California, Bedfordshire University and Ashoka University in India and promoted this form of folk art. He told The Express Tribune that Europeans and Americans had always appreciated truck art from Pakistan and now people of Pakistan have also started loving this form of art.



“The beautification campaign by ‘I am Karachi’ on MT Khan Road and the flyover near Airport on Sharae Faisal can be considered as revolutionary projects for the well-known Pakistani form of art,” Anchan added. According to him, the hate slogans on the walls of Karachi will be replaced one day with beautiful messages by artists.

Anchan and Ali said a number of consulates, embassies and cafés in Karachi have asked the truck artists from Phool Patti to paint their walls with the colourful and lively designs.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2016.