Shamsia Hassani and her friend and fellow artist Qasem Foushanji are Afghanistan’s first street artists who use graffiti to chronicle violence and oppression.
The female-male duo surreptitiously spray-paint the crumbling and dilapidated walls of buildings in the capital Kabul, abandoned and destroyed during 30 years of war that still rages today.
Talking of her woman on the steps, Shamsia Hassani, 24, said: “She is wondering if she can get up, or if she will fall down. Women in Afghanistan need to be careful with every step they take.”
The austere rule of the Taliban frowned upon painting and banned images depicting peoples’ faces, saying it was un-Islamic. They banned cinema, music and theatre outright.
Both Hassani and Foushanji said that stigma translates into harassment and disapproval from government officials. And like graffiti artists in other countries, they face attempts to stop them spray-painting public buildings.
Via dawn.com
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