Hani Amir 24/11/25 Hani Amir 24/11/25

Fini Buru (Take your brain for a walk around Male’ City)

When I close my eyes, I can still imagine the sounds, the smells, which corners to take. But it is all an illusion of memory. A mental prison from which I must escape.

Self portrait.

Digital Illustration and collage using my film photographs of Male’ City. Mostly Lomo-LCA and Vivitar Ultrawide & Slim with a mix of film stocks.

Part of an ongoing project to put my photographic archives of the Maldives to rest.

(2025)

Hani Amir 16/8/25 Hani Amir 16/8/25

Goalhi Kanmathi (Street corner)

Another collage from my old photographs. This time using a more mechanical approach with film scans from 2008. All photos are from two rolls taken in 2008. The blue hues are from cross processed Kodak Elite Chrome 100 shot through a Vivitar Ultrawide and Slim. The muted tones are from Clark Colour 200 shot through an original USSR model Lomo LC-A, with many shots using the multi-exposure function. All shot around my neighbourhood in Malé City around the time of the fall of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s 30 year dictatorship.

Hani Amir 10/8/25 Hani Amir 10/8/25

Minikaa Raajjé (Cannibal Kingdom)

Paradise is where you eat each other to survive

Hani Amir 19/6/25 Hani Amir 19/6/25

Kihinéh Vee? (What Happened?)

Fever dreams of development in paradise

Hani Amir 7/1/25 Hani Amir 7/1/25

Maa Kanfai Bodumas

(Alt title - self portrait in the style of Van Gogh)

Said to arise from small pink corals that grow on the corpses of drowned children, the Maa Kanfai Bodumas (Giant Ear Big Fish / Fish with ears that are too big), is an ecosystem onto itself.

It gently drifts through the dark waters outside the atoll, kept alive by faint memories of a long lost home.

Hani Amir 6/10/24 Hani Amir 6/10/24

Kandu Noo Fureytha (Ocean Blue Demon)

Smiling but dying inside.

Why do I look so good with a beard if it makes me feel so dysphoric?

Hani Amir 30/4/24 Hani Amir 30/4/24

Glimpses of Euphoria (Bury me at sea with my flowers)

Dying to become, dying to live, for in death we bloom

Hani Amir 16/1/24 Hani Amir 16/1/24

Portrait of Malé City

City of chaos, paranoia, claustrophobia, and blood

Hani Amir 23/12/23 Hani Amir 23/12/23

Iloshi Bouquet

Maldivians are raised to fear god and authority. To fear your family. To fear your neighbours. To fear for your friends. To hear the sounds of a child having the shit beaten out of them with an iloshi fathi and accepting it as a part of life. Because if we failed to fear god and authority, our masters would abandon us all, and leave our poor souls to die.

Hani Amir 14/12/23 Hani Amir 14/12/23

Fish Punk

They fish. They punk. They’re fish punk and they do not give a f***

Hani Amir 9/12/23 Hani Amir 9/12/23

Facing the Monster

Cryptozoology of the self.

Hani Amir 8/1/23 Hani Amir 8/1/23

Dhivehi Demons

Hani Amir 12/8/22 Hani Amir 12/8/22

Maama Dreams Of Tharaggee

Hani Amir 8/7/22 Hani Amir 8/7/22

How You Make Me Feel

CONTENT WARNING: Self harm, suicide, abuse, homophobia

How You Make Me Feel | Digital | (2022)

There is a lot I want to say about this piece. I draw in an unplanned, organic way. When things appear in my imagination, I add them in.

I imagined hands coming down as spiders, throwing out hooks, manipulating my face, my emotions, how I appear to the outside world.

The hooks would pull and tear at my skin, as the lines pulled through bone and sinew.

Why illustrate such violence towards oneself? Well for one thing it is better than hurting my physical body.

Through the process of this illustration I realised I was expressing some deep traumas that I have not really addressed directly. When I look back at the body of my work, it is obvious where I have subconsciously explored these feelings. In deciding to make this piece with more focus, I found that it drained and took a lot out of me. I worked on it tirelessly until it all came into focus, and when it did, I felt a tidal wave of exhaustion but also relief.

I feel like the time is right to share these stories. They will provide context for this work.