The starting point of this project was a near impossible meeting at the India-Pakistan border.
While Shanzay Subzwari made her way to the Ganda-Singh Border in Kasur, Pakistan, Abhishek Thapar waited for her at the Hussainiwala Border in Firozpur District, India.
Straddling many worlds (Subzwari spends her time between London and Karachi while Thapar is based in Amsterdam), this artist duo found a small, serendipitous window of opportunity to experience both the symbolic and actual separation manufactured by a line drawn on a map.
While the guards on both sides of the border did not allow them to come physically close to each other, let alone have a conversation, they documented their non-verbal meeting, or sighting to be more accurate, in scribbles, photos and sketches.
What followed is the creation of ‘Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte’, a reflection on their shared heritage, memory and loss.
Subzwari and Thapar had previously met in Switzerland and bonded over their artistic endeavours as well as food, language and cinema—harmless remnants of the long and troubled history of India and Pakistan. However, this very different meeting in a highly charged and polarised setting, provoked a journey, at times real and at other times, imagined, across time and memory.
As various landmarks, settings and characters in their individual narratives converge, we get a glimpse of an undivided past and future.
