about

Born and raised in Karachi (Southern Pakistan), Halar is an artist, cultural researcher, and an archivist currently based in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Moving across installation, text, video and archival material, Halar’s practice delves into the intersections of memory, displacement, and post-colonial realities of South Asia. Rooted in his family’s migration following the 1947 Partition of India, his work questions the idea of post-colonial Pakistan and what it means to have inherited a fractured homeland. His practice incorporates interdisciplinary methods, including multimedia installations, digitization of familial artifacts, field trips, oral history documentation, ethnographic research and textile.

A graduate of the Maastricht Institute of Arts, Halar has exhibited extensively across The Netherlands and Belgium, including his ongoing project “Ghar: Frames of Recollected Memories ” (2023) , showcased at DISPLAYCED 2025 (NL) , Dutch Design Week (NL) , and Landbouwbelang (NL). His most recent work, a multimedia installation titled “ From Dhoongri to Karachi ” (2025) is an earnest exploration of his grandmother’s migration to post-Partition Karachi, having to sculpt her life from the fragments of a divided homeland, blending restored family archives, intimate interviews, and recreated memories in an effort to collectively remember inherited trauma.

This video work, contirbutes to a larger and ongoing research question of his inherited fractured home - Pakistan. He is currently working on an art publication titled, “Ghar: Volume I”, comprising his field notes, diary scans, maps, and sribbles of home from his trip to Pakistan in the fall of 2023.

Halar is one of the founding members of tu.la.lit, a cross-continental platform for post-colonial co-research through sonic mapping and street culture, alongside his ex-art academy contemporaries.

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© HalarSoomro, 2025. All rights reserved.

Dhamal: The dance of Sindh