‘You Can Stop This At Any Time’

“You Can Stop This At Any Time” is a live performance art installation by Justice Project Pakistan and Highlight Arts designed to challenge the audience’s moral apathy and indifference to the death penalty.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

This live art installation will allow the audience to come face to face with the realities of the death penalty and the broken criminal justice system in Pakistan.The participants will have an opportunity to choose between letting a man executed or sparing his life struggling with the moral choice of — if you know something, should you do something.

It will incorporate a box in which an artist will play a death row prisoner whose story will be based on a real-life account. The viewer will enter the box and listen to a voice-over which will narrate the prisoner’s story, while the actor will remain seated and quiet. At any point during the narration, the viewer will have the choice of stopping the ‘execution’ of the prisoner by pressing a stop button. The box will be designed to accommodate one visitor at a time. The performance will last approximately two minutes, after which the next visitor can go in.

The installation is featured at the 10^th Karachi Literature Festival happening from 1^st-3^rd March at Beach Luxury Hotel, Karachi

PARTNERS

For this project, JPP has partnered with Highlight Arts, a UK-based performance art company which works on uncovering stories from areas afflicted with conflict or social injustice. Previously, JPP has collaborated with Highlight Arts on No Time To Sleep, Bus Kar Do and Intezaar.