Balochistan at a Crossroads

Pakistan’s largest province, Balochistan, lies at a crossroads. Bordering Iran and Afghanistan and boasting huge reserves of gold, gas, oil and uranium, it is a land of enormous strategic importance and great natural beauty and yet it remains all but inaccessible to the outside world.

Currently barred from Pakistan due to his work in the region, journalist Willem Marx joins award-winning photographer Marc Wattrelot to discuss their project Balochistan at a Crossroads.

With access to foreign journalists all but non-existent, and permanent expulsion or physical intimidation often the price for transgressing its boundaries, Marx and Wattrelot offer a rare insight into an area that has become one of the most hermetic and dangerous on earth; in the process uncovering a conflict so often ignored or misunderstood by the world’s media, an unparalleled landscape without an audience to view it and a people who long for recognition whilst engaged in a constant fight for survival.

Chaired by Declan Walsh, The New York Times bureau chief for Pakistan. He started his career in foreign correspondence in Nairobi, Kenya, where he was based for five years covering sub-Saharan Africa for The Independent and a number of other outlets. He moved to Islamabad in 2004 as Pakistan/Afghanistan correspondent for The Guardian, and moved to The New York Times in January 2012.

Willem Marx has reported from more than 40 countries and has been published by Harpers Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph. He is currently a correspondent for Bloomberg TV, based in New York, having previously worked as a television journalist for ABC News, Al Jazeera and CBS News.

Marc Wattrelot has exhibited internationally and has previously been based in New Delhi, where he worked as a journalist for several French television channels. He is currently based in Beirut and works as a documentary filmmaker throughout the Arab world.