Aziz Hazara: Fractured Geographies and the Art of Resilience

On a stark plinth in Aziz Hazara’s latest solo exhibition at the Bonnefanten Museum, Revenant (2025) demands silence. Five children, their faces shrouded by plastic bags, stand motionless as wind whistles. The bags cling to their small frames, capturing moments between suffocation and breath. Hazara, emerging from Afghanistan's contested landscapes, evokes the fragility of childhood under siege.

"This is not only about Afghanistan; it is about systems that kill," Hazara said during a panel discussion in March 2026. His critique focuses on the human cost of sanctions and military intervention.

Born in 1992 in Wardak province, Hazara is known for multimedia works that interrogate geography, power, and memory. His breakout video installation Bow Echo (2019), first shown at the 58th Venice Biennale, positioned him as a critical voice reflecting on Afghanistan’s post-2001 landscape. His latest exhibition, Cartographies of Absence, extends his exploration into how political decisions affect lives in conflict zones.

Each work situates itself within specific geographies—Kabul rooftops become precarious perches, arid landscapes turn into sites of erasure. Hazara’s language avoids abstraction. One arresting piece, Trace Atlas (2026), comprises large-scale maps stitched from discarded military gear sourced from Kabul scrapyards. "This is what remains when occupations leave," he explained to ARTDESENT. "They draw maps, and then they vanish, leaving people to stitch themselves back together."

The materiality of Hazara’s work is crucial. Barbed wire, plastic, shell casings, and found objects recur in installations, not as symbols but as residue. The tension between permanence and ephemerality is pronounced in This Dust We Inherit (2026), featuring video footage projected onto sand. Visitors shuffle through the installation, erasing parts of the projected image with their footsteps.

The show also grapples with the ethics of representation. In Echoes of the Unseen (2024-25), Hazara collaborated with families of civilians impacted by drone strikes to create layered soundscapes. “Their voices are present but fragmented,” curator Sanneke Stigter noted, “just as their lives have been.” Stigter, who first encountered Hazara’s work at Documenta 15, praises his ability to translate geopolitical violence into intimate moments of recognition.

Political art often risks oversimplification. Hazara’s practice avoids this, delivering what critic Anand Bhatt described as "a poetics of survival." Yet, the exhibition raises broader questions: What is the role of art in shaping narratives around war and sanctions? Who benefits from their aestheticisation? Hazara’s refusal to provide answers is deliberate. "Art is not a solution," he stated during the panel. Instead, it acts as a space to dwell on unresolved issues.

This tension is palpable in the exhibition's final room, where Endless Chorus (2026) loops video testimonials from refugees framed against shifting digital landscapes. The testimonies, spoken in Dari, Pashto, and Arabic, are untranslated—forcing non-speakers to confront their unfamiliarity. It is a provocative gesture. Hazara concedes some viewers will disengage. "Not everything is for everyone," he says. "That is also part of what I want to show."

In its refusal to flatten subjects into universal archetypes, Cartographies of Absence underscores the complexity of Hazara’s approach. His critique extends beyond Afghanistan. For Hazara, art is not merely about violence inflicted by drones or sanctions; it is about the bureaucracies that sustain them globally.

Aziz Hazara’s trajectory reflects broader shifts in contemporary art’s engagement with crisis. His inclusion in major institutions like the Centre Pompidou and the Whitney Museum signals a rising appetite for works confronting global inequities. However, it raises concerns about co-optation. As Hazara frames it: "I am wary of being 'consumed' as a war artist. My work is about survival, not spectacle."

The exhibition will travel to additional venues later this year, including the Hayward Gallery in London and the Sharjah Art Foundation. Cartographies of Absence invites us to witness, reckon, and resist forgetting. Hazara compels us to consider art not merely as a mirror but as a map for navigating fractured terrains.