The Arabian Sea: Until Their Bodies Glowed

The Arabian See: Until Their Bodies Glowed

In the winter of 2023, I traveled for the first time to Karachi, Pakistan, with my partner to meet his aging father and to photograph. As a photographic artist, I have been concerned with the poetics of memory, the interpersonal relationships of family constellations, inferred auto-biography, and the psycho-geography of place. As an extension of these concerns, I have photographed my partner's family & the Pakistani diaspora living in the United States for many years.

In search of possibilities, and after many starts and stops, I stumbled onto the shore of the Arabian Sea. Here, I began a new ongoing project, The Arabian Sea, with the subtitle, 'Until Their Bodies Glowed'; the latter taken from 'Araby,’ a short story by James Joyce. I was especially drawn to the extended community of itinerant vendors who provided leisure activities for the few families and denizens visiting in the cooler winter months. I was enamored by the opulent black sand, the constellations of strange light and loneliness that enveloped the vendors, and their menagerie of sad, lovely animals often aging, malnourished, and neglected. There was a chimera of possibility everywhere for those attempting to eke out a meager living for just a few rupees by providing pleasure for others. Many stood before the camera, bewildered, surprised, and compelled by an invitation for an unusual kind of attention and a reason to rest. I was also grateful for the momentary respite from my relentless pursuit of subject. Instead, we squared a place in the sun and gazed one upon the other, bathed in fading luminous light.