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SEEING · 2011–2022

Before I wrote it,
I shot it.

i was a journalist with a camera long before i was a founder with a deck. berlin squats, nepali hill towns, thar desert portraits, the hand pumps of south punjab. i took the pictures the magazines wouldn't run — women who had opinions, walls that talked back, heat you could see.

Saba, portrait — THE ONE HOLDING THE CAMERA.

BERLIN · TACHELES

The Squat

an art squat in a ruined department store on oranienburger straße. every wall painted over a hundred times, every stairwell someone's studio. they tore it down in 2012.

TACHELES — the letters welded onto the gate.

a doorway painted shut — a red halo round a face, tags over tags over tags.

a figure in white, dripping, painted straight onto raw brick. nobody signed it.

the toilets. two sinks, no doors, a monster inked across the ceiling and a decade of flyers tiled over the tiles. this is what people mean when they say a building was free nobody was coming to fix it, so everybody was allowed to change it. — the toilets. two sinks, no doors, a monster inked across the ceiling and a decade of flyers tiled over the tiles. this is what people mean when they say a building was *free* — nobody was coming to fix it, so everybody was allowed to change it.

BERLIN · KREUZBERG, 2012

The Last Cheap Year

kreuzberg was west berlin’s dead end — walled on three sides, so the rent stayed nothing and the landlords stopped repairing anything. turkish guest workers got the condemned tenements. german boys who didn’t want the army came because west berliners were exempt from the draft. then the punks and the squatters — a hundred and sixty-five occupied houses by 1981. when the wall came down the dead end became the middle of europe overnight, and nobody had told the money yet.

2012 was the last year before it noticed. tacheles was evicted that september. the spree banks were being sold while people marched to sink the deal. spanish and greek kids arrived with one suitcase because the euro had eaten their countries and this was still the cheap capital.

i had come from karachi, a city that hides what happened to it. berlin does the opposite. the hill is made of war rubble and they sled down it. the wall isn’t demolished, it’s a gallery. the spy station is a picnic. nobody there performs recovery. that was the first place i understood that damage doesn’t have to be a secret — it can be a wall you’re allowed to write on.

a trashcouture sign in a shop window. new york is monarchy. berlin is the ape that climbs the building and won’t come down — the only city that brags about being the wrong one.

a moped that stopped being a moped. every hand that passed left a layer until the object underneath went theoretical. the stickers are berlin’s census — everyone who came through, needing to leave proof.

a café furnished out of other people’s flats. sputnik lamp, four chairs that don’t match, an eye on the wall so you know the room watches back. nobody was designing berlin then. they were just refusing to throw anything out.

hung over the door, above the chalkboards: TROUBLE WILL FIND ME. a whole city’s fatalism used as a welcome mat. not keep out — just, it’s coming anyway. come in.

hand-lettered on a bedsheet above the coffee grinders — because you attempted to attack the will of the public that you are representin’, you gonna burn in that hell that you belive in. spelling left in. a café that hung a curse where the menu goes. — hand-lettered on a bedsheet above the coffee grinders — *because you attempted to attack the will of the public that you are representin’, you gonna burn in that hell that you belive in.* spelling left in. a café that hung a curse where the menu goes.

os gêmeos painted this six-storey yellow giant off schlesische straße. the brazilian twins say the yellow men come out of a dream they share. they wrapped him in a keffiyeh and set him down in a turkish kiez — a foreigner standing guard over the street that housed him.

a skeleton in a sunset, hung with beads, facing a figure whose whole head is feathers. day-of-the-dead grammar on a berlin firewall: the dead dressed up and standing in the light instead of tidied away.

a pasted-up body with no bones — black, speckled, one wooden arm, a face made up like a mourner’s. glued on wet and buried under other people’s names inside a week. every wall here is a lease, not a deed.

painted across the shopfront backwards, so it reads from the inside: where is jesus? three question marks under it, in case you thought it was rhetorical. two people wait at the door, not looking up. — painted across the shopfront backwards, so it reads from the inside: *where is jesus?* three question marks under it, in case you thought it was rhetorical. two people wait at the door, not looking up.

a red thing screaming at roof level, a furious man in a pink collar at street level, someone’s blue blob between them. four artists, one wall, no agreement. the bins are the only thing anyone maintains.

a raised fist and a face going green behind the weeds. the mural outlived the movement. the plants are outliving the mural. nothing gets trimmed on this side of the canal.

a car buried under turf, a stripped bus turned into a grandstand, on land nobody had bought yet. the machine goes under the grass; the people sit on the wreck. this is what free land looks like before it gets a price.

a wooden deck on the flutgraben, full by seven in the evening. that water was the border. everyone is drinking on the death strip and no one mentions it.

houseboats strung along the canal, one serving food off a chalkboard. the last summer you could live on that water for nothing.

a beetle the size of a dog bursting out of the plaster, and under it a green-party poster: vor der mauer, nach der mauer, schickt der staat die wanzen. before the wall, after the wall, the state sends the bugs wanzen means both the insect and the wiretap. two germanies, one habit. — a beetle the size of a dog bursting out of the plaster, and under it a green-party poster: *vor der mauer, nach der mauer, schickt der staat die wanzen.* before the wall, after the wall, the state sends the bugs — *wanzen* means both the insect and the wiretap. two germanies, one habit.

a creature built out of crushed cans, blue-eyed, clawed, crouched under a dripping tap. consumption drawn as an animal that has grown a face and is now waiting for water. painted where the recycling actually piles up.

two heads, all eye and all teeth, drawn in pen on the wall between other people s signatures. the eyes are enormous because in a surveilled city looking is the loudest thing you can do. — two heads, all eye and all teeth, drawn in pen on the wall between other people’s signatures. the eyes are enormous because in a surveilled city looking is the loudest thing you can do.

scratched into the paint and dated 6/28/2012: if the world s my oyster, you are its pearl. jos hern ndez signed it. the most defended concrete in europe became a place strangers left love notes on, by hand, with a key. — scratched into the paint and dated 6/28/2012: *if the world’s my oyster, you are its pearl.* josé hernández signed it. the most defended concrete in europe became a place strangers left love notes on, by hand, with a key.

a corner in january the ironwork tagged, the render gone, four artists deep on one pillar, the street empty behind. this is the texture nobody photographs: not a mural, just a wall that everyone has touched. — a corner in january — the ironwork tagged, the render gone, four artists deep on one pillar, the street empty behind. this is the texture nobody photographs: not a mural, just a wall that everyone has touched.

a hand-painted sign wired to camouflage netting: please: no drinks, bikes dogs. the only rule on the whole lot, and it asked nicely. berlin s authority was one board and a please. — a hand-painted sign wired to camouflage netting: *please: no drinks, bikes & dogs.* the only rule on the whole lot, and it asked nicely. berlin’s authority was one board and a please.

me, that autumn, in a coat i bought secondhand. i was thirty-something, freshly unemployed from a magazine, and for the first time nobody in the city knew what my surname was supposed to mean.

stencilled on black: you can’t break me today, come back tomorrow? — stencilled on black: “you can’t break me today, come back tomorrow?”

BERLIN · MAUERPARK, SUNDAYS

The Amphitheatre

an amphitheatre built where the wall was. every sunday a stranger sings and two thousand people cheer for them. behind it, a flea market selling other people’s lives.

it fills without an invitation. AM I ♥ BERLIN, sprayed on the step.

flohmarkt. other people’s lives, laid on blankets, three euros each.

a puppet in a red dress dances in her own suitcase while the crowd walks past.

shot through the crowd, moving. i kept this one for the blur.

BERLIN · AFTER DARK

The Lit City

the electric company strings light through the trees and calls it a gift. the funfairs stay open. i shot most of this out of focus on purpose.

LICHT FÜR BERLIN, down the whole boulevard.

the wheel, out of focus — the crowd was the picture.

and in daylight: a bronze woman in an empty fountain.

the sony center at potsdamer platz a tented sky over a plaza built on the widest part of the death strip, two blue cones of light where the watchtowers were. the money came back and lit it like a christmas card. this is the other berlin, the one with a facilities budget. — the sony center at potsdamer platz — a tented sky over a plaza built on the widest part of the death strip, two blue cones of light where the watchtowers were. the money came back and lit it like a christmas card. this is the other berlin, the one with a facilities budget.

BERLIN · TEUFELSBERG

The Listening Station

a cold-war spy station on a hill made of war rubble. the americans listened to the east from inside those domes. now the domes are torn open and every surface is painted. the best gallery in berlin has no roof and no door fee.

the radar dome, skinned. TOMMY, CLEO, and everyone else who climbed up here.

a whole wall of swirl, under a concrete ceiling nobody maintains.

a painted shack in the trees — two faces, one eye, and CUT THE... the rest is gone.

NEPAL · KATHMANDU & THE HILLS

Nepal

i went for a festival of women and stayed for the sadhus. a sadhu performs his own funeral before he becomes one — the death rites for himself, said in his own mouth, so the caste dissolves and the name goes with it. after that there is no family, no property, no future tense.

the ash on the skin is vibhuti — ideally lifted from a cremation fire, because ash is what everything becomes and he has decided to wear the ending on purpose. three horizontal lines for shiva. the beads are rudraksha, said to be shiva’s tears. the hair is never cut, because cutting it would be grooming and grooming is vanity. they live at pashupatinath beside the burning ghats on the bagmati, where the bodies go all day, so that they never get to forget what they already agreed to.

and then a tourist pays five hundred rupees to photograph the man who killed his own ego. i paid. i’m not standing outside that transaction — i’m inside it, holding the camera

a sadhu ties the thread on my wrist. i didn’t ask for the blessing and needed it anyway.

the women of the world festival. four strangers, one joke, every one of them with a plan.

a monk in maroon, laughing at something he wouldn’t translate.

orange turban, white beard, a salute for the camera.

kathmandu on a saturday: denim, topknot, phone.

a face painted three storeys high over a narrow street.

a sadhu in saffron, painted for the day — coins and rudraksha round his neck.

another, sitting inside a stone doorway hung with marigolds. red robe, white ash.

and this one, laughing at me for asking. i shot it in black and white so nothing else competed.

an old nun in the temple doorway. she let me stay for one frame.

ganesh on strings, in a night market, out of focus behind him.

a girl in the crowd, gold in her hair, a finger in her mouth.

PAKISTAN · THAR & THE DESERT

The Faces At Home

the portraits the fashion magazines wouldn’t print — women with weather in their faces and gold in their noses. nobody here was styled. everybody here decided how they were photographed.

thar. an embroidered veil, and a face that has already decided about you.

she lifts the lace to show the nose ring. it is older than the border.

teal, gold, garland. she stood exactly as long as she wanted to.

a child in her mother’s gold, holding still for one frame.

the veil covers the face; the bangles say everything anyway.

a green veil on a rooftop, the sea behind her.

PAKISTAN · THE STREET TAKEN

They Were Told Not To

bicycle rallies past the fort. two women and a flag on one scooter. a sports day nobody asked permission for. i wasn’t documenting a hobby — i was documenting women taking a street back.

a red scooter, a flag, and a woman riding through traffic that wasn’t expecting her.

the rally rides past the fort wall. helmets, gears, an old fort watching.

two on one scooter, the flag riding third.

four women in sunglasses. one of them is the officer.

going fast, on a road that wasn’t built for her.

THE CAMPAIGN · 2016 · A SHOOT HALF THE INDUSTRY IGNORED

Kami Sid

i photographed Kami Sid — pakistan’s first transgender model — for a campaign no magazine had commissioned and most of the industry pretended not to see. silver, kohl, a painted backdrop, one lamp on a lawn. she chose every frame. it ran anyway, and it travelled further than anything i had shot before.

silver, kohl, and a look that doesn’t ask.

gold ground, red dress. lit like a painting, because that was the point.

behind it: two people, one lamp, a lawn.

THE STREET · HEAT, WATER, WHAT’S LEFT OVER

What The Heat Does

the hand pump that holds a whole street’s water. the garbage that becomes a landscape. the dogs who live in the smoke. i was photographing climate before i had the word for it — it was just what the place looked like.

one hand pump, one concrete basin, the whole street’s water.

the carriage, filling up. everyone standing.

HOT BOY, painted on the bonnet. breakfast served off it.

hands over the griddle. nobody measures anything.

a dog carries the bread past a truck tyre taller than he is.

a lot full of garbage, houses right up to the edge of it.

haze, rubble, and a dog standing in the middle of it.

the guard, asleep on the bench in the afternoon. rifle beside his head, pistol by his hand, boots on the ground. nobody woke him.

a colonial drinking fountain still standing in a karachi park. no water in it. the dogs use the shade instead.

ELSEWHERE · BEIJING, PARIS, NEW YORK, BRUGES, THE SAVANNAH

Everything In Between

the cities i passed through with a camera and no plan.

beijing. a pedicab, parked, and the park doing its afternoon.

paris rooftops, deliberately unromantic.

fifth avenue. the clock, the cab, the walk sign.

a painted bench in bruges, and a long sit.

red beadwork, one arm on the jeep, the dust coming.

eight pigeons, in order, holding the skyline.

prints, licensing, or a shoot — ask me.

saba@poetica.studio →

A PIECE · PASHUPATINATH, KATHMANDU · SHIVARATRI 2017

The Ones Who Attend
Their Own Funeral.

Shivaratri, 2017. The Dutch documentary crew was turned away at the gate of the fifth-century temple; my brown skin walked me straight in. My guide, Ganesh, narrated the morning like a wikipedia entry written by a drunk frat boy — corpse-brides, miracle oils, a marriage I had allegedly entered by accepting a blessing. So this piece is the opposite of Ganesh: every caption below survived a fact-check.

On the Bagmati ghats, four pyres burned in a row. Three hours to burn a body. No wailing, no black — mourning wears white here, and the river carries the ash toward the Ganga. What stayed with me wasn’t the burning. It was learning who doesn’t burn.

A sadhu in saffron robes and turban on temple steps — THE COLOUR

saffron is fire, worn as clothing. a sadhu takes it after performing his own funeral rites at initiation — he attends his own shraddha, gives up his name, and the man who walks away is already cremated. everything after is afterlife.

An ash-faced sadhu in red, framed in a carved stone shrine window with marigolds — THE ASH

vibhuti — ash, often from the cremation ghats — worn face to body. ash is the one substance fire cannot take twice; wearing it is wearing the ending in advance. he keeps a votive shrine built for the dead. the marigolds are for the gods.

Two sadhus in orange walking through the temple complex — THE ORDERS

sadhus belong to akharas — monastic orders, some a thousand years old, organised like regiments. the forehead mark is the uniform: horizontal lines for shiva’s men, a vertical flame for vishnu’s. you can read a stranger’s whole theology from ten feet.

A sadhu seated cross-legged on a plinth, counting rudraksha beads — THE COUNT

rudraksha — “rudra’s tears,” seeds of a blue-fruited himalayan tree — strung in one hundred and eight. the mantra is counted with the thumb across the segments, never the index finger. the index is the ego. it doesn’t get to keep score.

A young sadhu in black turban and long dreadlocks, smoke rising behind — THE LEFT-HAND PATH

the black-clad orders practise where everyone else refuses to: the cremation ground. the rumours about them — corpses, cannibalism — travel further than the documented practice, which is harder to sensationalise: sitting all night beside the burning dead until fear runs out of things to say.

An elder sadhu with painted face, coins threaded through his rudraksha — THE COINS

he owns nothing, and wears a ledger: coins threaded through the rudraksha, each one somebody’s offering. pilgrims give to be blessed, tourists give to photograph, and the line between the two is thinner than either side admits.

A sadhvi in black, dozens of bead malas, drinking chai — THE ANSWER TO MY FIRST QUESTION

yes — there are holy women. sadhvis, perhaps one in ten. many take renunciation after widowhood, or after a marriage they walked out of: the one respectable exit from a life somebody else wrote. she drank her chai like a verdict.

A sadhu with a high knot of matted hair smoking beside the river — THE SMOKE

charas — shiva’s herb, technically illegal, ritually tolerated, fully sanctioned one night a year at shivaratri. the chillum circles the way the stories do. below him, the river carries the morning’s ashes toward the ganga.

Close portrait of a sadhu with intricately painted face — THE FACE

painted fresh every morning; washed off every night. the discipline is not the pattern, it is the repetition — impermanence, rehearsed daily on one’s own face until the face stops being yours.

A black-clad, ash-faced sadhu raising his right palm — THE BLESSING

the raised palm is abhaya mudra: *fear not*. at the gate, a sadhu pressed a blessing onto my muslim forehead without one question about my god. the dutch film crew was still outside, arguing with security.

An old sadhu with grey matted hair coiled high, wrapped in a pale shawl — THE BURIAL

the fact that reorganised my whole morning: sadhus are not cremated. cremation is for householders — the fire takes what they could not let go of. a sadhu let go at initiation, so there is nothing left to burn. he is buried seated, in meditation, facing north. the fire is dismissed.

PASHUPATINATH · MAHA SHIVARATRI · FACTS CHECKED AGAINST THE ETHNOGRAPHY, NOT AGAINST GANESH

A PIECE · RURAL SINDH · THE CLOTH, THE BANGLES, THE WALLS

She Wears The
Whole Archive.

Rural Sindh, on the edge of the Thar — whitewashed walls, noon light, the desert that holds most of Pakistan’s Hindu population. Nothing these women wear is decoration. Every item is a document: the bangles publish her marital status, the embroidery names her community, the veil answers to whoever happens to be standing nearby.

I photographed what they chose to show me. In two of these frames, that does not include a face — and the portrait works anyway, because the clothing was always doing the talking.

A woman fully veiled in yellow tie-dye, both arms stacked with green bangles — THE CHURO

a bride’s arms, published. after marriage a thari woman stacks bangles from wrist to shoulder — once ivory, now acrylic — and wears them for years. the stack is a legal document you can read from across a field: *married, and recently.* she pulled the ghoonghat down over her face; the bangles kept announcing her anyway.

An older woman in a red printed dupatta edged with lace, village blurred behind — THE CHUNRI

knot-dyed in the bandhani tradition sindh shares with rajasthan — every white fleck is a thread tied by hand before the cloth met the dye. the crochet edge is hers, added at home. gold in the ears, a phul on the nose: the savings account of a woman the banks were never built for.

A woman holding a teal lace-edged dupatta over her head like a canopy — THE SHADE

the dupatta is architecture. pulled forward at noon it is a roof; dropped to the shoulders at home it is a shawl; held out like this it is a doorway she decides how far to open. on the black cord, a taweez — protection written on paper, folded into brass, worn against the chest.

An elderly woman in a floral teal veil over a mirror-embroidered bodice — THE GAJ

under the veil, the gaj — the embroidered, mirror-worked bodice of the thar. a woman stitches her own before her wedding, mirror by mirror; the pattern names her community the way a flag names a country. the mirrors are for the desert: they throw the evil eye back where it came from.

A young woman in an olive lace veil, black bindi, nose ring, white bangles up the arm — THE BORDER THAT ISN’T

bindi, nose ring, the ivory-white churo up the arm: she carries what the map calls india on her body and has never crossed a border. the desert never partitioned itself. she is standing in her own country, wearing five thousand years of it.

RURAL SINDH · WHITEWASH WALLS, NOON LIGHT · NOTHING IS STYLED

poetica— SABA KHALID · saba@poetica.studio

Before I wrote it,I shot it.