another border…

I take a drive up to the Wagah border to experience the raising of flags ceremony that has been documented many times over. The afternoon is humid and hot, and the soldiers dressed in black, are streaming strands of sweat even as they march across the steaming asphalt. The...

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08 Jul, 2014

a grant award for my “what is home?” project…

08 Jul, 2014

I learn via email that I’ve been awarded an artist innovations grant through the Mid-America Arts Alliance for my What is Home? project, one that I started during my residency with the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts.

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07 Jul, 2014

a visit to rohtas 2 in lahore…

Sehba Sarwar
07 Jul, 2014

Thanks to Salima Hashmi, I spend the evening iftar with a group of artists at Rohtas 2, a gallery on one side of Professor Hashmi’s house as we discuss Voices Breaking Boundaries’ Borderlines project.

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30 Jun, 2014

dubai airport again…

Sehba Sarwar
30 Jun, 2014

Dubai airport continues to expand, getting increasingly glamorous with little credit given to men from different parts of Asia who provide hard labor yet live outside the city’s air-conditioned glass bubble.

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13 Apr, 2014

a panel discussion for the mitchell center…

13 Apr, 2014

As part of my residency with the Mitchell Center for the Arts, I participate at CounterCurrents 2014 in a panel discussion, Challenging the Boundaries: Collaboration Among the Arts, and about my residency itself, for which I’m creating a memoir What Is Home?. As the conversation closes out, Daniel Romain...

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10 Mar, 2014

home-cooked puri…

Sehba Sarwar
10 Mar, 2014

I wake up late this Sunday morning, and when I wander into the kitchen, I find that my mother Zakia Sarwar and Minal have kneaded whole-wheat flour to create dough for fresh-fried puris. While I make a desi-omelette with cillantro, jalapeños, onions and tomatoes, Ammi fries the puris. The...

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27 Feb, 2014

on air with david barsamian…

Sehba Sarwar
27 Feb, 2014

David Barsamian from Alternative Radio visits Houston to give a talk, and I manage to pin him down for a live conversation on KPFT Pacifica Radio 90.1 FM. To listen, click here.

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07 Feb, 2014

a frosty morning minal-ism..

07 Feb, 2014

April 2012: Patti Smith visited Houston for a reading with Voices Breaking Boundaries; here, she’s at Hobby Airport saying farewell to Minal We’re listening to Patti Smith’s song, “1959”, as I drive Minal to school this frosty morning. Because of the song, our conversation moves toward student activism. Minal:...

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02 Feb, 2014

year of the horse celebration…

Sehba Sarwar
02 Feb, 2014

A lion at Houston’s Chinese Cultural Center’s Year of the Horse celebration.

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17 Dec, 2013

bangladesh’s mother language day…

17 Dec, 2013

Rickshaws alongside a mural by students of the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka, inscribed with lyrics by Abdul Gaffar, and dedicated to Mother Language Day. My piece, Bangladesh’s Unresolved History of Independence, and video just appeared in Creative Time Reports.

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14 Dec, 2013

finding comfort…

Sehba Sarwar
14 Dec, 2013

The temperature is freezing cold as I wander through the roundabout near George Washington University in search of Thai food. As I walk on Pennsylvania Avenue, I walk past a restaurant called Mehran, where I stop to take a peek. The neon lights and the smell of spice draws...

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what is home?

In my two-year residency at the University of Houston’s Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, I have the opportunity to work on a subject, What Is Home?, and explore material that has been at the heart of my writing and artistic practice for quite some time. This fall,...

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I was inspired to begin my blog when I visited the library at my alma mater, Mount Holyoke College, and saw a framed photograph of my friends and me calling for divestment of funds from South Africa.

In 2007,  I began a blog when I visited my alma mater and saw a framed photograph of my friends and me calling for divestment of funds from South Africa. I use the blog to document my movement between spaces, Houston, Karachi, Delhi, Dhaka, Los Angeles and elsewhere, recording observations, images and conversations. Here, I document the multiple realities that I inhabit – writer, artist, mother, activist, educator, and transnational. Interviews from my blog were exhibited at Houston’s Baker Ripley Community Center (2014) and at Houston Public Library in downtown (2015). My papers are archived at the University of Houston’s library.