PAST CONVERSATION

Passport Photos with Suniko Bazargarid

Please join BAXTER ST 2025 Resident Suniko Bazargarid for a passport photograph pop-up on October 18 from 3-5 PM in BAXTER ST’s gallery at 154 Ludlow Street in response to Bazargarid’s solo-exhibition, Where would we find you if we need to find you?. On view from September 10, 2025 – November 12, 2025, the exhibition weaves together personal and archival imagery to explore the psychological, spatial, and bureaucratic tensions that shape the experience of migration and memory. Participants of all ages are invited to come and have a free passport photo taken by the artist in the gallery and to reflect on what it means to be seen in this mediated way. Participants will receive a printed copy of their photograph to take home. Photographs are free and the activity is first come first served.

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.

ABOUT SUNIKO BAZARGARID

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.