Ordugah/Detention Camp, performance in Mashad, Iran in 2014

For Afghan artist Elyas Alavi, the suburb of Sakhteman, Iran felt like an ordugah, a detention camp both undocumented and documented refugees live in constant fear of being caught at police checkpoints when leaving or entering. Alavi suggests confinement and geographical control over Afghan refugees in Iranian suburbs; invisible wires fences and walls surround refugee communities living on the fringes of cities. With thread unraveled from jumpers knitted by his mother and worn as a child in Afghanistan, Alavi makes visible the walls of the ordugah.