Concert Uni Kabul

The Faculty of Fine Art Kabul held an all-night music 'raga' concert for Profs. Philip Pocock (Canada) and Michael Saup (Germany) in the faculty lounge.

cLass photo workshop Kabul 2004

cLass photo workshop Kabul 2004, originally uploaded by con10t.

Philip Pocock, visiting professor under the Cultural Personalities

Exchange Program, at the University of Kabul Fine Arts Faculty with

Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan Christopher Alexander, students and

faculty members.

Photo by: Peter Marshall (June 2004)



http://www.canada-afghanistan.gc.ca/cultural_exchange-en.asp

NoMoreMines by Shekibaa

NoMoreMines by Shekibaa, originally uploaded by con10t.

Mahmoud got a broken doll for a song from a rag trader outside the Sahki Mosque. Back at the Faculty of Fine Art Kabul, The female student Shekibaa, specialist with the silver pen (see her blogged Loya Dirga Plastic Leaf) inscribed a message that reads something like:

NO MORE MINES PLEASE.
WE LOVE OUR LEGS.

CNNSoldier by Maisam

CNN_Soldier by Maisam, originally uploaded by con10t.

Afghanistan was the last country of earth to get network television, around 1978. The reception is just like anywhere, maybe a bit sharper with nails as an antenna.

BamyanBuddha_MiniMemorial by Wahaab

BamyanBuddha_MiniMemorial by Wahaab, originally uploaded by con10t.

The theme posed the class was Landscape and Memory. Landscape meant using only materials found in Kabul nothing foreign. Wahaab found a smooth chalky rock outside, almost shaped like some strange tool, perhaps from a blast, and he saw his Memory in it - the indelibly cruel erasure of the Bamiyan Buddha. Here a work by a young Kabuli studying art, Faculty of Fine Art Kabul, 12 June 2004.
(Perhaps this work belongs to one of, or the first series of contemporary art to have been made by young local cultural producers in Kabul since Year Zero - 2001)

LoyaDirgaPlasticLeaf by Shekibaa

LoyaDirgaPlasticLeaf by Shekibaa, originally uploaded by con10t.

Mina's colleague woman art student Shekibaa painted a silver 'place' to represent the seat of government and more importantly peace and harmony on a leaf found outside the Loya Dirga provisional tribal government tent. It was a plastic leaf.

LoyaDirgaShoe by Mina

LoyaDirgaShoe, originally uploaded by con10t.

Mina, one of 4 young women participating in Landscape & Memory, found this leather slipper or shoe baking in the sun outside the Afghan parliament, a German tent of the kind used for temporary trade fairs, with air cooling. The parliament is called I believe the Loya Dirga, a meeting place and event for policy and legistlature representing the various localities and positions within the country.
Mina used some half-dried nail polish we found in the local market and she glued some old thread found as well. The slipper bobs and perhaps will be launched by the rusty bed spring pedestal it's perched on. Photos by Mahdi, also a workshop student.

ShellBottle by Mahdi

mahdi_ShellBottle, originally uploaded by con10t.

Uncanny, Mahdi's drink water bottle pierced by a 40mm shell resemble the high-speed image of a bullet piercing an apple by Harald Egerton. Shells are easy to come by in Kabul, the ones to worry about are those with the extra piercing power due to uranium coating or some other devilish technology, which any conscious perrson would imagine pose a risk to children in the streets after whatever fact is being pounded.
This shell casing turns the bottle into thin air, water evaporated, gone like the waters of the Kabul River, not even a trickle but still mosquitoey and soggy under foot to make life for the hoards of returning refugees camping in provisional plastic tarp tents on the ex-waterway a test for patience, simply a misery. The vertical invisible, the water bottle empty and pointing up nonetheless poses a cross form and questions with the stiff horizontal line of the shell magically arrested or perhaps unaware that the bottle is even there.

WoundedBullet by Maisam

WoundedBullet by Maisam, originally uploaded by con10t.

ExitOpen by Maisam and Mahdi

ExitOpen by Maisam and Mahdi, originally uploaded by con10t.

Not Made in Afghanistan by Maisam

Not Made in Afghanistan by Maisam, originally uploaded by con10t.

Memory Bracelet by Mina

Memory Bracelet by Mina, originally uploaded by con10t.