برزخ liminal brings together the English word “liminal” with the Farsi term
برزخ (barzakh), a concept that evokes a state of suspension – a threshold between death and resurrection, presence and disappearance. While the two terms resonate with one another, they are not fully interchangeable; each carries its own cultural and philosophical weight.
Sarwari’s work weaves the refugee experience through this linguistic pairing, holding space for overlapping pasts and imagined futures, for alienation alongside belonging, and for acts of remembrance amid the pull of forgetting. In this in-between terrain, displacement’s uncertainty is acknowledged while also becoming a site of possibility – a space where hope can take root.
Sha Sarwari, a multidisciplinary visual artist and Hazara born in Afghanistan, creates allegorical, poetic visual experiences inhabiting the liminal space between longing and belonging. Drawing on personal lived experience, he engages with sociopolitical discourses surrounding migration, identity, memory, place, and nationhood.
SHA SARWARI, UNTITLED 12 AND 13, 2023, CHARCOAL, CHARCOAL POWDER, CANVAS AND PVA GLUE ON MARINE PLYWOOD, 40 X 50CM.
