To commemorate International Migrants Day an art group called the "Tentative Collective" organised a "social action" where they invited people to come and sit on a public wall for one hour "to acknowledge the divisions between communities in Karachi and to suggest that these divisions are artificial."

The resulting group of 30 to 40 people that assembled on Sunday December 19, included artists, activists, and people from diverse socio-economic classes. They had been instructed to dress in white and collect outside Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Park (at Boat Basin).

At about five o'clock they walked down the outside of the park and sat on one of the walls facing the road. During the hour they chatted, waved, and invited passers by to join them.

"This social action has been organised in response to the ethnic violence and instability in Karachi, a city of diverse migrant communities. A city that has unfortunately become a city of walls, hedges and barbed wire. Free public space has become gated, walled, priced and policed. Homes have become little fortresses. Could we suggest that these boundaries are arbitrary?"

"Beyond Walls" was the first organised by the freshly formed collective, and was coordinated by Yaminay Nasir, Rasheed Khan and Mohammad Saddique Khan, along with the help of volunteers, photographers and other supporters who helped in arranging and coordinating the event. - Text and Photos by Nadir Siddiqui/Dawn.com