Art is Courage

The Strength of a Woman (Work of the Artists )

Last summer I arrived in time for the annual art exhibition organized by Turquoise Mountain Foundation (TMF), an NGO set up in 2006, backed by two patrons, HRH Prince of Wales and HE Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan. http://www.turquoisemountain.org  Coincidentally, I arrived this summer just in time for the 3rd annual exhibit.

TMF has an institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture under which it runs several schools. One of which is the School of Calligraphy and painting. Through this program they train and mentor painters on posture, movement and materials. At the end of the year they organize an exhibition of their students best work. 

The two faces of Islam (Work of the Artists)

(Work of the Artists)

We express facets of ourselves through our work,interaction and creativity. The works of these afghan painters for me reflected the turmoil and struggles of the war. It reflected fear, anger, hurt, pain, yet glimpses of hope, faith and courage. It was heartening to meet the artists and talk to them. Some of them had never known they had such talent in their hands until TMF helped them discover it. Others knew but had no avenue to express or be valued for it. 

(Work of the Artists))

Seeing these artists exhibit their talent and win recognition in the form of prize money was such an inspiring and empowering, yet humbling experience. This was a dream come true for all of them. Art requires courage, a lot of courage. Courage to believe in yourself, courage to stay grounded, firm and sincere to the art form and pursue it diligently, drawing strength from the outside world that applauds or recognizes it's worth.

Bagh-e-Babur Gardens (built by Agakahan foundation) hosted the Art Exhibition

I bow down to my brother and to all my friends who are artists, from painters to sculptors to musicians to designers to singers to actors to writers. I have seen many of you struggle, yet persevere through thick and thin and find your own place in the sun. Charles Horton Cooley, an american sociologist, once said, an artist cannot fail, it is in fact a success to be one.

Hamida, Shirin and me at the TMF art exhibit at the Bagh-e-Babur, July 2010

My free spirit

I arrived in Kabul three weeks ago. Even though I've lived here before, I have returned with a new employer and had to undergo standard security procedures and protocol. One such procedure was receiving my BlackBerry and learning how to use the GPS secure locator. This application tracks your movements at all times.

While I was undergoing my training in the office to test how the GPS locator works, I was shown a large computer screen with a map of the area I live and work in Kabul and with one click we narrowed down to our office that displayed all my office mates in the office as it should. However, I was not on the screen. After several attempts to scroll up and down the enlarged digital map of the office to find me, my security head clicked on my name. Seconds later, we followed the navigator outside the office, 300 miles away on a mountain top... thats where the GPS secure application picked up my Blackberry signal. Confused and bewildered, my security folks suggested they keep my Blackberry for 24 hours to make sense of this confusion. Never had it happened before. I laughed and thought to myself "this BlackBerry has my name on it. My free spirited soul cannot be contained... welcome to Afghanistan, Rima ! "