Stray Hopes & Antidotes

Those who embody hope can be hidden in plain sight. Bringing them together allowed me to create a tangible symbol of hope; people who not only inspire but remind us of our own potential to rise above adversity. In 2017, after years away from Lahore, the city of my birth, I returned to photograph it. It was an unsettling experience. The city had changed profoundly—trees had fallen, kite-flying had been banned, friends had gone into exile or disillusioned, highways had been carved through familiar landscapes, and the air was thick with alarming pollution. I began photographing symptoms of disturbance, creating a keepsake, a direct albeit metaphorical record of a shifting city. Observation reminded me of the people who constitute the very texture and soul of a certain Lahore I grew up in. A city of musicians, poets, writers, artists, craftsmen, and activists started to appear. I listed them together, envisioning them as a collective force—a meaningful counterweight. Most are also educators and mentors quietly nurturing the seeds of social change. I was mentally repopulating the city with what had once been its essence. Their portraits became the antidote to baleful powers at work. These portraits, paired with cityscapes, form mental diptychs and visual resonances—each image addresses the other, creating echoes of memory and meaning. This corpus of memories is a tribute to a city barely catching its breath and its people who struggle to breathe life and hope back into it. - This series is in the permanent collection of Quai Branly Museum, Paris. Cette œuvre a été réalisée grâce au soutien du musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac /
 This work was produced with the support of the Quai Branly Museum – Jacques Chirac, Paris