Foreigners are Being Watched

Foreigners Are Being Watched (Lahore, Pakistan, 2003) is a video sculpture sparked by a stark newspaper headline reading Foreigners Are Being Watched seen on the streets of Lahore during the “War on Terror” era. The installation shows eyes of a man and a woman looking through a jaali (a veil or screen). It counters the implied surveillance and suspicion of the headline, with recitations of a poem by Pablo Neruda. The images and Neruda’s verses evoke fragile notions of desire and intimacy.

Pablo Neruda (Spanish original)
Ésta es la casa, el mar y la bandera.
Errábamos por otros largos muros.

…y ahora de pronto la volvemos viva,
la poblamos y no nos reconoce:
tiene que florecer, y no se acuerda.

(English translation)
Here are the house, the sea, the flag.
We wander past other long fences.

…and now, abruptly, we return it to life,
we settle in, and it does not recognize us:
it has to bloom and has forgotten how.