Index of places
Thirteen places, one life.
The same 236 photographs, filed not by series but by where he was standing.
An atlas of the places
Plate 1 of 13
Bamyan
Afghanistan
He moved here in 2005 for an administrative job with the International Organization for Migration and photographed the valley, the empty niches and the people living under them. His first solo exhibition, in 2007, was of this work.
Thirteen plates, thirteen scales. The bar under each one is the same length. The number on it is not.
Bamyan
Afghanistan
He moved here in 2005 for an administrative job with the International Organization for Migration and photographed the valley, the empty niches and the people living under them. His first solo exhibition, in 2007, was of this work.
Bogor
West Java, Indonesia
A villa in the hills above Jakarta, friendly to asylum seekers, where he waited for a boat. Three roommates left on an earlier one. It sank, and only Jafar lived.
Cisarua
West Java, Indonesia
The other town above Jakarta where Hazara asylum seekers waited, photographed from inside the wait: shared rooms, football at dusk, a phone that had not rung.
Dandenong
Victoria, Australia
Where he lives. He photographed the Hazara community here in 2014, founded the Hazara Cultural Association, and in 2024 began the campaign to rename the Afghan Bazaar precinct Little Bamiyan.
Darwin
Northern Territory, Australia
Where he arrived in 2013, brought by Australia's humanitarian programme after UNHCR recognised him as a refugee. Within months he had won two Nikon-Walkleys.
The Indian Ocean
Between Java and Christmas Island
Ninety-three people on a fishing boat built for far fewer. On the second night the weather turned and the captain said they had to go back. The photograph he made on deck won the inaugural Nikon-Walkley Photo of the Year.
Kabul
Afghanistan
He moved here in 2007 and worked for a decade: for the US Embassy, for the Red Cross orthopaedic centre, and for the newspapers that ran his work. The city he had to leave in September 2012.
Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Three nights under house arrest in a smuggler's house, not allowed near a window, between the border crossing from Thailand and the flight to Sumatra.
Melbourne
Victoria, Australia
Home. He coordinates the Refugee Leadership Program at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, has taught photojournalism at RMIT, and showed Searching for Sanctuary at State Library Victoria from 2024 into 2025.
Quetta
Balochistan, Pakistan
Where he was born in 1983, to Hazara parents who had fled Afghanistan in the early 1970s. He bought his first camera here, a Nikon FM10, and photographed weddings. He returned through it in 2012, leaving.
Sindh and Balochistan
Pakistan
The 2010 floods. Seventy frames, the largest single body of work in this archive, and the shortest time spent making one.
Sumatra
Indonesia
A car with the windows locked, twenty-one hours across the island, between the flight from Kuala Lumpur and the villa at Bogor.
Ujung Kulon
West Java, Indonesia
The far western tip of Java, where the boat broke on the rocks. Everyone reached the shore. He slipped into the water and destroyed his camera; the memory card survived, and this archive is what was on it.
The places are those of the nine series, the route is from his own captions of 2015, and the dates are from the story. Nothing here is estimated. The archive · The story