Barat Ali Batoor’s photography of Afghanistan and the refugee experience has won him plaudits around the world. Integrating his personal experience as a Hazara refugee to Australia into remarkable photographs, Bartoor presents to global audiences visions of rarely accessed worlds. Batoor’s images have points of intense focus that grab the eye but simultaneously invite the viewer to range over the contrasting textures and forms of the multiple background layers. His artistic brilliance rests in large part on his ability to capture the intensity of feeling within everyday activities—harvesting crops, smoking a cigarette or caring for children.

Leaving Kabul in 2012 Batoor undertook the perilous journey to Australia via Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia carrying his camera and keeping a photographic record of the journey along the way. One of these images, that of refugees looking up and  out from under the boards of a boat bound for Australia won him the Nikon Walkley Photo of the Year in 2013. It stands as a portrait of transition—men with hope for a safer life and freedom from fear, at the precise moment when they are trapped in the hull of a boat on perilous seas. Bartoor’s online galleries also show us life among the Hazara in their homeland, as well as their arduous journeys as refugees traversing Pakistan and Indonesia.  An engaging series of Black and White images depicts the Hazara community in Melbourne, at work and play.

Batoor has also been at the forefront of publicising the lives of the so called ‘dancing boys’ (bacha-bazi)—adolescent boys who are bought and sold for men’s entertainment in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dressed in feminine clothing they perform at men-only private parties. The bacha-bazi have a chance for freedom once reaching adulthood, but often find themselves trapped in a life of sexual slavery or ongoing social stigma. Batoor’s poignant photos of the bacha-bazi below reveal their plight as trafficked children but also their resilience and grace in performance.

The images below depict life in the face of great adversity.