Quarter 4 December 15th. 2020 - April 15th. SPECIAL
September 19th.-27th.
Quarter 3 September 15th. 2019 - December
15th. 2019
Quarter 2 May 31th. - September 1t5h.
Special Climate Alert:
Quarter 1 FEB- 31 MAY
2019 :
Malala Yousafhai Pakistan -
Nigerian schoolgirls - Peshmerga
female combatants
Koerdistan -
Shamsia Hassani: Amazon Afghanistani socially engaged street artist. She was born in Iran before she moved to Afghanistan.
And when I say a street artist I don't mean a graffitist putting her
tags all over the place but somebody with a social/community message or
in her words:"I want to colour over the bad memories of war on the walls,"
Hassani told Art Radar last year, "and if I colour over these bad
memories, then I erase war from people's minds. I want to make
Afghanistan famous because of its art, not its war."
Graffiti has proved the perfect artform for modern-day Afghanistan, practically as well as metaphorically. It is the ultimate democratic medium, freely available to spectators and artists alike (save for the spray-can budget) and capable of transmitting a powerful idea or message without words (Afghanistan still has one of the world's lowest literacy rates). Art galleries are scarce in the ravaged cities, but there are blank walls and pavements in abundance. Hassani even sprayed one of her pieces on the ruins of Kabul's Russian Cultural Centre. And where graffiti is an outlaw activity in the west, policed with Taliban-like vigilance, in Afghanistan, it is embraced (Hassani teaches at Kabul University's faculty of fine arts). For extra irony, she took up the art after being inspired by British artist, Chu, who held a graffiti workshop in Kabul in 2010. Women are very much Hassani's subject matter. She often draws them in stylised blue silhouettes, wearing burqas, or, more recently in a hijab. They're far from Taliban-sanctioned stereotypes, though. Hassani's figures are active subjects: strong, graceful, dynamic, often depicted emerging from depths, lost in reflection, even dancing. "I want to show that women have returned to Afghan society with a new, stronger shape," she told Art Radar. "It's not the woman who stays at home. It's a new woman. A woman who is full of energy, who wants to start again."
Now imagine yourself, a Western street artist, walking around in Kabul, surrounded by fellow citizens but moreso in the constant crossfire between the taliban, al qaida and the IS, the government and the USA troops. Would you have the balls to paint your street art? I don't think so but Shamsia Hassani does! Watch and listen to an interview by the women's room, UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DQ5GuZRQYw&t=915s
copyright The Guardian - The womens room, UK editor Gino d'Artali |
copyright cryfreedom.net 2019