2026 · Curated
Premier's Multicultural Gala Dinner photo exhibition
Premier's Multicultural Gala Dinner, Melbourne
August 2026
Selected the photographs for the 2026 gala exhibition and exhibited as an artist.
On the wall, in order.
Solo and group shows since 2007, in Australia and before it. Each entry carries its venue, city and dates as the institution stated them.
By the second night of the voyage, the weather turned. © Barat Ali Batoor, Seeking Asylum, 2012.
It was a desperate decision to leave everything behind. I flew to Thailand and waited for four days to be taken to Malaysia. With three other men seeking asylum, I crossed at the border by boat and was picked up on the other side by Malaysian smugglers. We traveled for five and a half hours by car to Kuala Lumpur, with our heads kept between our knees the whole time to be avoid being seen. I paid $1000 US for this leg of the trip. © Barat Ali Batoor, Seeking Asylum, 2012.
1 June 2024 to 30 January 2025
Searching for Sanctuary: A journey of survival
Keith Murdoch Gallery, State Library Victoria, Melbourne
Opened as part of RISING 2024 and extended twice. More than 170 photographs and the footage he shot on the boat, tracing the passage from Afghanistan through Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia to Australia.
- Works
- 170+ photographs and film
- Recognition
- Highly Commended, Small Project (Gallery), Victorian Museums and Galleries Awards 2026
Exhibitions, newest first
10 exhibitions, 7 of them solo, 2007 to 2026
2025 · Solo
Hazara Exodus (a selection) 2009-2012
Palm Plaza, Dandenong
From October 2025, ongoing
His photographs of asylum seekers’ journeys, his own among them, printed on fifteen blades suspended in Palm Plaza. Part of the City of Greater Dandenong’s Transformed temporary public art program.
2024 · Solo
Journey of Resilience
Kerry Packer Civic Gallery, Hawke Centre, University of South Australia, Adelaide
5 to 28 June 2024
Photographs from the passage and from Hazara life in Australia, shown during Refugee Week.
2021 · Group
Peoples and Landscapes in Motion
Silk Roads @ UNSW, online, Sydney
From 26 October 2021
An online exhibition of four photographers, Hoda Afshar, Muzafar Ali, Barat Ali Batoor and John Gollings, curated by Ayshe Eli and Louise Edwards. His pages show Bamyan and Kabul, and The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan.
2014 · Solo
Afghanistan: Photography by Barat Ali Batoor
Western Australian Museum, Perth
26 July 2014 to 18 January 2015
Shown alongside Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul. Included a public lecture, Hazara Exodus / The Unseen Road to Asylum, in August 2014.
Afghanistan, 2002 to 2012.
2014 · Group
Heartlands 2014
Footscray Community Arts Centre, Melbourne
From 12 June 2014
The Hazara community of Dandenong, photographed in his first year in Australia. Presented by AMES.
The Hazaras in Melbourne, 2014.
2013 · Solo
The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan
10x8 Gallery, Sydney
September to October 2013
The first Australian showing of the series, months after his arrival, with the support of Tim Page. Later shown in Melbourne and Perth, and at the Shimmer Photographic Biennale, South Australia, in 2018.
The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan, 2009 to 2010. From a series shown on this site behind a notice.
2013 · Solo
Photographs from Afghanistan
Kidogo Art House, Fremantle
21 November to 8 December 2013
Shown by the Curtin University Centre for Human Rights Education for its tenth anniversary, with a seminar at Curtin and an artist’s talk at the gallery.
2007 · Solo
First solo exhibition
Bamyan and Kabul, Afghanistan
2007
Daily life in Bamyan. His photographs have since been shown in Denmark, Dubai, Pakistan, Italy, Japan and Switzerland.
Exhibiting the work
Institutions can request exhibition prints at sizes to suit the space, framed works from the State Library Victoria show, the footage he shot on the boat in 2012, artist talks and floor talks, and tours in Hazaragi for community groups and schools.
A series can travel whole or be selected around a theme: the passage of 2012, Afghanistan between 2002 and 2012, the Hazara community in Australia. Say which rooms, which dates and which audiences, and we will come back with what is possible.