Exhibit of Work by Two Photographers Shows Life in Afghanistan Over Two Decades
A display of injured veterans and war orphans offers a visual record of the toll taken on the population of Afghanistan. For downloadable images #photos click here
Thursday, January 16, 2003
"Afghanistan 1982-2002" features photographs by Edward Grazda, an American who began taking photographs in Afghanistan in 1980 and has returned nearly every year since. The exhibit, which is free and open to the public, will be on display at the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, 2204 Erwin Road, Durham, until Feb. 5.
The 31 photographs, unframed and tacked to the wall with silver pushpins, are displayed in groups showing the same people and places over time. One sequence, for example, shows women working in an office in 1992, an empty desk in 1997 following the takeover by the Taliban, and the same room bustling with office workers in 2001. Another series shows an apartment building, later nearly destroyed by shelling, that now shows signs of life with boys playing volleyball outside.
"Instead of seeing one news picture in today’s paper, this way you get to have a sense of how things have changed," said Grazda, who has published two books on Afghanistan. "It’s a way of seeing it over time, rather than just this one news picture of the day."Grazda began photographing the mujahedeen in 1980 during the war against the Soviet Union. He returned during the chaos following the Russian pullout and then documented the rise of the Taliban. His recent photographs record the post-Taliban era in Afghanistan as well as the Afghan community in the United States.
His work has been published in "The New Yorker," "Vanity Fair," "DoubleTake" and "Granta," and he is the author of "Afghanistan 1980-1989" (Der Alltag, 1990) and "Afghanistan Diary, 1992-2000" (powerHouse Books, 2000.) His latest book, with Jerrilyn Dodds, is "New York Masjid: The Mosques of New York City" (powerHouse Books, 2001).
Also on display at the Franklin Center are photographs by Khalid Hadi, who was born in Kandahar in 1981. Because he knew how to read and operate a simple camera, he began working as a 13-year-old recording the war injuries of Afghan fighters for an Afghan aid foundation.
He later worked for two magazines published by the Ministry of Culture in Kandahar and has lived since 2000 in the United States.
Hundreds of the photos -- most of them passport-sized and intended to provide proof of injury -- are scattered in a glass case at the Franklin Center. Digital enlargements of 54 of the photos are displayed in an exhibit called "Afghan Portraits." The pictures, which resemble somber, 19th-century portraits rather than modern photographs, show men, women and children in native dress, often with amputated limbs and other injuries.
"Khalid’s portraits of wounded fighters, orphans and children wounded by land mines and bombs are an impressive visual record of the toll taken on the population of Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation," Grazda said. "This small selection comes from a collection of approximately 5,000 portraits."
Among the fighters Hadi photographed was Mullah Omar, who later became leader of the Taliban. Hadi’s photograph is believed to be one of the few pictures of the mullah, who has been in hiding since October 2001. Grazda wrote a story about his friendship with Hadi and their search for more recent pictures of the mullah in this month’s "Vanity Fair" magazine.
Though Mullah Omar is the best-known of Hadi’s subjects, Grazda said he chose not to include that image in the exhibit at Duke.
"I wanted it to be the anonymous faces of the wounded people. These are the hidden people," Grazda said. "There have been millions of people like this who have been wounded over 20 years."
Grazda and Hadi will be at the Franklin Center Jan. 30-31. Grazda will give an artist’s lecture at 4 p.m. Jan. 30 and both photographers will attend a reception from 5-7:30 p.m. Jan. 31. Both events are free and open to the public.
Downloadable images are
available. For Khalid Hadi’s photographs, go to
Hadi_1.jpg
or Hadi_2.jpg
For Edward Grazda’s photographs, go to: AfghanistanDiaryInterior1.jpg or AfghanistanDiaryInterior2.jpg
For Grazda's photographs, please credit powerHouse Books.