Barialai Khoshhal - Diversity Development Residency 2022-2024

In partnership with the Open Doors Initiative

Citizens of Dublin – Portrait of a City
March 2022

Barialai’s new Citizens of Dublin – Portrait of a City project marks the Year of Disability Integration in Dublin City. Barialai is working with the Open Doors initiative and Photo Museum Ireland to create a contemporary portrait of diverse citizens of Dublin - one that makes visible the experiences of people with disabilities and people from hard-to-reach and underrepresented communities, and any intersectionality therein, living in the capital city. 

• Barialai will work in collaboration with participants drawn from diverse backgrounds to give a unique insight into the perspectives of people with disabilities and people from underrepresented backgrounds., addressing the benefits and challenges they face as citizens of Dublin. A combination of portraits taken on location at sites chosen by the participants across Dublin will combine with text to share the viewpoints and insights of people diverse are proud to call Dublin home. The portraits will be combined with the participants’ own stories taken on smartphones, to create a uniquely democratic, contemporary portrait of the Citizens of Dublin – one that reflects the cultural mix and diversity of contemporary Dublin. 

• The exhibition will address themes of accessibility by looking at the capital through another lens of citizens as they negotiate the city. The participant’s insights and perspectives can inform how we build towards a better, more inclusive, accessible city and society. 

• Supported by the Office of the Lord Mayor

Echoes of Home’– the Afghan Community in Ireland
Erin Room, Dublin Castle. On show: 17 October - 29 October 2023

Building on his work begun in 2022, Barialai expanded his project begun in 2022 to explore memories of a lost country and the creation of new lives in Ireland. The work brings together Barialai’s photographs from Afghanistan showing what daily normal life looked like before the fall, together with a series of portraits and stories of Afghans who now live in Ireland. Several of the photographs also feature host families who have formed relationships with Afghans who came to live in their homes. Participants were asked to describe what ‘home; means to them in their own words. The photographs and text combine to create an important record that documents the building of new lives and the creation of enduring bonds of love.

This exhibition has been kindly supported by Business to Arts – through the Jim McNaughton/TileStyle Artist Bursary, Catapult Events, CREATE Ireland, Office of Public Works / Dublin Castle, Photo Museum Ireland, The Open Doors Initiative, WHPR and The Arts Council

 Follow: @BaryalaiKhoshal @opendoorstowork

About the artist: Barialai has nine years of experience in documentary photography. His work has been published in AP, BBC, ITV London, Aljazeera English, the Diplomat Magazine, The Irish Independent, the Dublin Inquirer and The Irish Times. He has worked as a photographer, photojournalist and videographer from 2014 to the present. He won the UNSECO photo competition in Afghanistan in 2017. He came to Ireland in 2021 following the fall of Kabul. In 2022 he was awarded the Business to Arts Jim McNaughton Tilestyle Artist Bursary and CREATE Ireland Project Realisation Award. His work has been featured in several international group photo exhibitions in Kabul, New York, Canada, Paris, Jakarta, Oslo, Dublin and Tehran. He is currently Artist-in-Residence at Photo Museum Ireland (2022-23). He also works as a freelance photographer undertaking commissions for a variety of corporate and NGO organisations across Ireland.

Website: www.barialaiakhoshhal.com

‘Keeping Home and Hope Alive’
Photo Museum Ireland August 2022

In 2022Photo Museum Ireland and the Open Doors Initiative supported Barialai to develop, produce, curate and present his ‘Keeping Home and Hope Alive’ pop-up exhibition charting the progress of the Afghan community in Ireland as they set out to rebuild their lives while holding onto their Afghan culture and identity. Marking the commencement of Khoshhal’s Artist Residency at Photo Museum Ireland, the exhibition introduces the artist’s long-term project which will explore how the two cultures are melding and how the group is adapting to new ways and integrating into Irish life.

“Leaving my home in Afghanistan was gut-wrenching. I left family, friends, a successful career, and my sense of being. I miss my home very much but want to make a new home here with all that entails.”, Khoshhal reveals.

“I have received the warmest of welcomes in Ireland from my host community and the creative community. This has enabled me to start a new life, to integrate into Ireland and start again. My photographic work for this exhibit started with finding comfort and solidarity with my fellow Afghans and sharing our stories and culture. It has expanded out as people settle here and learned new ways to blend both cultures and our lived experience, as we carve out a new life in Ireland.”

“In many ways, it has brought me great happiness that I did not expect. It is an emotional journey and has given me learnings about other Afghans and our home, through the perspective of a new sense of place and how we create a new community here - of strangers who have become family. It has moved from fear and sadness to exploring new joys and ways of being. For this I am very grateful and want to express this through my work”.