The Journey Ended, Here Comes the Spring, a series of work that reflect on presence, absence, and the spaces in between shaped by displacement, migration, and exile. The archives in these series are sourced from Ishaq Ewaz’s familial archives, originally captured in Jaghori, Afghanistan, dated around the 2000s. The painting is developed in about thirty layers of different mediums such as photo transfer, acrylic paints, inks, sanguine pencils, graphite and coloured pencils. The piece includes patterns, florals and symbolic birds inspired by the embroidery motifs crafted by Hazara women, traditions passed down as forms of leisure and informal education. Incorporating it inform the material memory as an act of resistance and cultural preservation against historical erasure. 

Let Me Tell You Stories of My Heart, Since Our Separation Lasted So Long 

The title of the painting comes from this piece I wrote;

“Remember the mountains filled with the echoes of us singing,
the field when in spring would smell pure almond and ever-moving sea,
carrying our tales. Let’s revive each memory we lived,
but on another land. Let me tell you stories of my heart,
since our separation lasted so long.”