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2016: A story of meeting across borders

Shooting Across The Border

I've decided to revisit this collaboration because I've been feeling a sense of nostalgia about the past and have been ruminating about the idea of man-made boundaries and divisions.


India and Pakistan have had a love-hate relationship since they were divided post colonial rule in 1947. It is surprising for many to know that despite being right next to each other and sharing a border, Indians and Pakistanis cannot visit each other's countries unless in exceptional circumstances. 
My Indian friend Abhishek Thapar, who I met at an artist-in-residence programme in Fribourg, Switzerland in 2016, and I, decided to 'meet' each other across the Ganda Singh/Hussainiwala Borders in Kasur, Pakistan and Ferozepur, India. Below are images from both our perspectives.
My perspective
Abhishek's perspective

To be able to be in different countries and see and wave at each other across 'forbidden' spaces with menacing guards looking on, was a surreal experience. Our phones were blocked so we could only communicate through gestures. 

This, to us, was a symbolic act of rebellion, of love, breaking or attempting to break barriers, and to show each other that despite being divided politically, we are very much the same.

Abhishek's perspective

My perspective

We plan on making work together for an upcoming project, stemming from this meeting. It will be a fictional narrative based on magical realism.

Perhaps my work for my MFA thesis this year at London Met Arts could include aspects of borders, separation and magical realism, stemming from this exciting, interesting experience of my life.

Via Abhishek Thapar-
14th August 2017/15th August 2017. Abhishek wrote:
We wouldn't shoot each other, if Radcliffe hadn't drawn his notorious line 70 years ago. And if that was the case, perhaps, we would have been singing in chorus today or maybe tomorrow?
I would travel to Karachi at the drop of a hat for a plate of biryani and you would do the same for chole bhature in Amritsar. Probably, we would have the fastest bowlers and the best batsman in the same team and we would have just one name for the valley. Maybe then you drew on different currency notes and I wouldn't have made 'My home at the Intersection'.
But it seems like, sadly this wasn't the case, therefore, it was only fitting that we happily 'shot' each other across the Line of Control!
Happy Independence day!
Here is a first glimpse of a fantabulous collaboration with Shanzay Subzwari :). Much more to come!


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