ARTISTS

Suniko Bazargarid

Baxter St. Residency (2025)

Where would we find you if we need

Born in Ulaanbaatar, Suniko is a Mongolian photographer who spent her early years in Boston
before living in Singapore, Bangkok, and now New York. Her practice is deeply shaped by her
nomadic experiences, exploring the complexities of people and places through themes of
migration, identity, and the fluidity of memory. Working with both film and digital photography,
she examines the intersections of personal and societal narratives, from collage work to intimate
portraits of places, often reflecting on those that have shaped her. Her work has been exhibited
internationally in cities such as Bangkok, Paris, and New York, and published in outlets like AP,
Forbes, The Diplomat, and Musee Magazine. In 2023, she graduated from the International Center
of Photography, where she was awarded the Arnold Newman Scholarship and the Director’s
Fellowship. Most recently she exhibited as part of UB Photo Week 2025 and Art Week 2025 in
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Where would we find you if we need to find you?, an exhibition of new and
recent works by Mongolian photographer and 2025 BAXTER ST Resident, Suniko Bazargarid. The exhibition weaves together personal and archival imagery to explore the psychological, spatial, and bureaucratic tensions that shape the
experience of migration and memory.

Drawing on her own transitory upbringing between Boston, Singapore, Bangkok, and Mongolia,
Bazargarid explores the contrast between intimacy and distance, reflecting her many departures
and returns. Analog and digital photography, interspersed with documents such as passports, ID
photos, and stamps, form layered visual essays that expose the logistical challenges of crossing
borders. These are set against the emotional and spiritual weight of displacement—the desire to
leave, the pull to return, and the uncanny experience of encountering one’s homeland as a visitor.
Through these layered journeys, the work also gestures toward the evolving, and at times, elusive
nature of diasporic identity, shaped as much by migration, memory, and landscape as by inherited
tradition.

The exhibition’s title comes from a question asked of the artist by a border patrol officer. “Where
would we find you if we need to find you?” is both a practical inquiry and a charged reminder of
regulation, visibility, and control.

Images of expansive Mongolian landscapes appear throughout the work, providing visual stillness
and moments of reflection. These open vistas are juxtaposed with everyday details— multilingual
signage,and stamped passport pages—that raise questions about what we carry with us, what we
leave behind, and how space is transformed by presence and absence.