Artist and poet Elyas Alavi, based in Naarm/Melbourne, has collaborated with Quetta-based senior artist Fazil Mousavi, bringing their explorations of the Hazara migratory experience into dialogue across oceans. Alavi met fellow artist Mousavi when he visited Quetta to connect with relatives and the broader Hazara diaspora that has made a home there. Mousavi is a key figure of the Pakistani art scene, having taught many local artists who continue to work as professionals across Pakistan. This, their first collaboration, takes its title from a poem by South Asian poet and philosopher Allama Iqbal, Tanhai (Loneliness):

سفر نصیب! نصیبِ تو منزلے است کہ نیست؟
“Safar naseeb, naseeb-e-to manzilist keh neest”

(“O traveller of fate, is there even a destination in your destiny?”)

On the La Trobe Art Institute façade are presented two scroll-like paintings by Mousavi that depict layered histories and experiences. Prominent in the work are the outlines of boot prints, referencing the intrusion of a nameless aggressor, and the humiliation of a people. Also included is calligraphy that reproduces Mousavi’s late-uncle’s letters, written to his family after he travelled from Pakistan to Afghanistan, which contain veiled references to shared family knowledge. Coded to evade Taliban interception, this correspondence communicated proof of life. The large figure rendered in burnt sienna references a prior drawing by Mousavi, capturing the inhumanity and cruelty of the early Taliban regime through the ambiguity of the medium’s material application and linework. Additionally, Mousavi has included elaborate Arabic calligraphy in a nod to the conservative interpretation of religious texts seen across all faiths, as well as snippets of Pakistani mainstream media scattered throughout the paintings. These two citations together speak to the practice of wilful misrepresentation in both religious and secular contexts.