Naz̤ar is a research project centered on South Asian Muslim communities across several European cities, rendered through interdisciplinary art practices. The project began in Athens, focusing on the neighborhoods around Omonia, Kypseli, and Attiki. This work navigates the shifting terrain of ‘visibility’ within migrant realities. Through stories, rituals, and everyday gestures – where visibility can mean both refuge and risk – it listens to echoes of displacement and longing, tracing the ways in which memory, faith, and intimacy are held.
As a Muslim filmmaker from India who has experienced living abroad for several years, I have always found a sense of home in the visible presence of South Asian Muslim communities around me. While these communities are not homogeneous, their cultural and spiritual engagements in the corners of several European cities are often shared and familiar. Many times, I’ve approached the cities through the lens of these small corners. Naz̤ar attempts to relive the encounters with the people I’ve met here – traces of exchanges in neighborhood cafes, makeshift mosques, Ramadan evenings, half-sung songs – held in fragments of sound, image, and text.
The word Naz̤ar resonates with meanings such as ‘behold,’ ‘gaze,’ ‘surveillance,’ and extends to ‘evil eye’ in several South Asian languages. It carries a weight – sometimes protective, sometimes perilous. Naz̤ar can bless or wound, veil or expose, carry desire or suspicion – it is the unseen residue of looking.
The project in Athens is developed at The Onassis AiR Extended Research Residencies program in Greece.