Name: Project Dastaan
Start: 07 November 2025
End: 16 November 2025
Location: 4A LAB

Exhibition

Project Dastaan

When

07 November 2025 -
16 November 2025

Location

4A LAB

181-187 Hay Street, Haymarket

Public Opening: Friday 7 November, 5pm - 7pm

Project Dastaan (داستان‎/दास्तान: “Story”) is a peacebuilding initiative reconnecting individuals displaced during the 1947 Partition of British India with their ancestral villages through VR, co-founded by multimedia producer Sparsh Ahuja and director, producer with author/historian Sam Dalrymple and academic/journalist Saadia Gardezi. Project Dastaan is a new media storytelling project collating and presenting interviews with Partition survivors across the UK, India and Pakistan in five languages.

At the heart of Project Dastaan is Child of Empire (2021), an animated virtual reality (VR) docu-drama experience which immerses viewers in one of the largest forced migrations in human history. Through intimate and reflective storytelling, the work invites viewers to experience the upheaval and emotional impact of this historical moment from a human perspective. The film, which is co-created with director, producer and screenwriter Erfan Saadati, premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival as part of the New Frontier program.

The story follows two men from the Partition generation, Ishar Das Arora (voiced by Adil Hussain), an Indian Hindu who migrated from Pakistan to India, and Iqbal-ud-din Ahmed (voiced by Salman Shahid), a Pakistani Muslim who made the opposite journey. As they sit together playing a board game, their childhood memories begin to intertwine across borders and generations. Viewers embody the experience of a seven-year-old child at pivotal moments, witnessing both the displacement and the resilience that shaped millions of lives.

Project Dastaan builds upon this pioneering new media film with a suite of animated films, interviews and an interactive website, offering a powerful counter-narrative that lends a fresh perspective on the effects of forced migration on everyday individuals.

Project Dastaan is generously supported by the CatchLight Foundation, Digital Catapult and Arts Council, National Geographic, The British Council, and BFI/Doc Society. Project Dastaan at 4A LAB is supported by Creative Australia and the City of Sydney Ideas and Innovation Grant.