History, uploaded: Crowdsourcing a South Asian archive of memory

Stories, photographs, memorabilia – how online communities piece together remnants of a shared social and cultural past.

Can a sepia-tone photograph capture hues of identity, longing, nostalgia and home? Consider this. It is the spring of 1982. Twenty-five-year-old Tahzeeb has just landed in Riyadh after taking her maiden flight from Pakistan to reunite with her husband Nasir who works at the US embassy in Saudi Arabia. Shortly after she arrives, Nasir has a novel idea, to take a portrait shot of the two of them.