This bitter-sweet series captures Havana in a state of flux as Cuba began to open to foreign influences and investments. Then the Trump government shut its door and the pandemic added another economic barrier around the island. Nevertheless, this lure of possible economic growth remains unreachable for most of its inhabitants. Some streets receive occasional cosmetic repair but everywhere else, houses often crumble and life remains a daily struggle. The half-deflated ghosts of Chinese balloons in a pensioner's restaurant encapsulate the sense of exhaustion that prevails everywhere. Seven glasses of water, on offer to the Orishas, provide a veneer of respectability and expectations. Young people train their bodies in the hope of a favorable exile; anywhere but elsewhere in search of the utopian million-dollar note that adorns a watch repair shop. Meanwhile, the stage is being reset; vehement old signs of "Socialism Or Death" are moving to the background, making space for homemade Disney icons with mandatory smiles, bringing out the discrepancy between the tired hopes of the population and a dire state of things. Havana, Cuba. Shot between 2014 and 2022

“Muse von Gemüse” - (Muse of the Vegetables) - The pandemic of 2020 found me in the Austrian countryside, where I saw the seasons pass. Being on the road was not possible that year, and most projects were cancelled. I turned towards growing vegetables and visited several small farms which are cultivated by passionate farmers. Through the slowness of these times, I became friends with vegetables and built conversations with these heterogeneous characters. As I inspired them to flourish, they inspired me back in making these images. “Muse von Gemüse” is my way of celebrating local vegetables and art. - Prints are now available, starting from €450. For details, please visit the contact page or email : email@studioaun.com

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In 2017, after years out of Lahore, the city of my birth, I returned. It was an unsettling experience. Trees had been cut, kite-flying banned, friends gone into exile or giving up, giant new highways confiscating parts of the city and fragmenting it. I could not help but photograph what, for me, were symptoms of a lethal disease, at the same time create a keepsake, a direct albeit metaphorical record of a disintegrating city. In parallel, I searched for people who constitute the very texture & soul of a certain Lahore that I grew up with, a city of musicians, poets, writers, artists, craftsmen, and activists. All of them are also educators and mentors to many. In a way, I was mentally repopulating my city with what had once been its essence. People who sow seeds of social change. I constructed their portraits as the antidote to baleful powers at work. These pairs of images are plural but intimate conversations. Portraits and ‘cityscapes’ mirror and address each other, creating mental diptychs and visual resonances.

This corpus of memories is a tribute to the city that is barely catching its breath and its people who struggle to breathe life back into it.

Bhaktapur, Nepal 2012.

On March 8th 2013, all of the houses (175 approx.) including two small churches in the Joseph Colony Lahore were looted and set ablaze due to a falsely alleged blasphemy case after making all the minority Christian residents flee, all of whom work as cleaners & sweepers around the city and are considered dirty & of lower cast by the majority of Pakistani Muslims. The night before the incident, Mr Sawan Masih of Joseph Colony was falsely accused of blasphemy by two Muslim men. The accusation instigated an anti-Christian outrage among the surrounding iron merchants and their workers. The local police evacuated the whole colony in 30 minutes saying that they could not guarantee the life of anyone. Next morning, a mob of more than two thousand workers from surrounding scrap-metal factories participated in the rampage. All the valuables were stolen before setting all the houses on fire. Industrial chemicals were used by the mob which melted metal objects that caught splashes of it. The hoard of right-wing, small-scale scrap-metal industrialist surrounding the colony had been trying to buy out this tiny Joseph Colony since the last 20 years. This was their most momentous attempts to evacuate the houses. These photographs were taken on the day when the residents were first permitted to return to their incinerated homes and discovered that their lifelong savings had been looted. The last four pictures were taken after the repairs partially funded by the government to save face for the May 2013 elections. The Joseph Colony is barely surviving so far.

Uzbekistan is a two-sided postcard. On one side are the glorious remains of the Silk Road days and on the other side is the heavily lingering Soviet shadow which keeps getting crossed over by the seemingly distant American popular culture. Around New year days, Uzbek Islamic-nationalism takes the back seat and Santa Clauses roam around doing everyday jobs while dreams of a different world float in the air.

Myanmar has been embracing storms of the ‘outer’ world since the unexpected but long awaited political reforms which began in 2010. Yangon, where lies the eye of these economic tornados, has a hint of roughness for everyday life while people also manage to retain a gentleness and tenderness which might fade over time. The casual urgencies on the streets, the morning walks of new and old urbanites, the assembly of lovers inside and surrounding each garden, the ravishing architectural heritage submitting to new businesses, a lot might transit away from Yangon’s day to day life. Meanwhile, encounters keep happening, games keep getting played, dogs keep getting loved and curtains keep getting raised every day.

This series from the Lahore Mental Asylum has accumulated over four years. This place is an asylum in its true sense. However, they often detach themselves from the identity of the lunatic, insane or disturbed and the indulge in their figmental reality. The faces are terribly familiar to people aware of the Pakistani populace but most of these patients have a lifelong struggle with the world outside the asylum and some of them have just given up looking for any refuge. Many have reached this place due to failed love affairs leading to addictions while some are here due to birth disorders but most of them, after getting cured here, are unable to stay at their houses. They return from the inanity outside, to this safe haven where they can sing, scream, dance and bluster without inhibition.

King Sihanouk has passed away, the Khmer Rouge are long gone and so are the French. Each one has left their mark on this 'City of Four River' in the 'Kingdom of wonder'.

Bucharest seems a memoir of desires. Yearning to step out of the past while silently staying inside it. Signs of life are sacredly displayed, ornamenting the post-cold-war world and echoing each other. Bucharest offers its phantasmagoria at the fading edge of Europe, step by step loosing colour, reaching a point where decay melts into lustre. In gardens, slices of stale bread comfort the autumn struck trees, stalkers meet ancestral masks while a baby bear feels intimidated by the neons of the city. Animals, alive or pictured, taciturn plants witness a subtile shift in the state of things. They become the characters of a state of mind, of a city adrift.

Wandering through the Kurdish region along the Eastern Anatolia border areas.

Coal workers at the Spenkarez coal depot area near Quetta, Balochistan.

Pictures from Ulaanbaatar, Choir, Baganur & Zamyn Uud. - 2013