From Guantanamo Prison Until August 15
From Guantanamo Prison Until August 15 (2023) Bahar Arfan Selected by Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in eXiLe e.V.
Bahar Arfan, on their work:
To express this project, I have used color orange. My experience with this color was when I saw the news about the Guantanamo prison that was published on social media. And later I saw that the ISIS group covered their victims with orange color and killed them.
The orange-clad people of Guantanamo prison have now, with the connivance of their jailers, dressed the people of Afghanistan in orange, and women are the most victims of this invisible prison.
I as a woman have been one of the victims of this conspiracy and I am one of those wearing orange. Since women are the most and deepest victims of this conspiracy, for this reason, the color orange is a symbol of the condemnation and oppression of women during the period of Taliban.
Selected by Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in eXiLe e.V., on their selection for AFI '24:
A nation that was a victim of global political games finally fell into the trap of a disaster. Since the formation of this tragedy, women have lost the right to education, the right to work, the right to choose and the right to speak. This video is a protest work of an young Afghan women artists who herself and her family are one of the victims of this tragedy. I introduce this protest work of one of the victims of the cruelty and violence of the anti-feminist and anti-art government to this exhibition as a cry and protest of a population of 20 million Afghan women. Once again, our world is threatened by widespread violence, in this case, every voice against this global disaster is audible. A voice that calls us to unite against this global threat. This scream and the protest video of the emerging artists not only call the world to sympathize but at the same time makes them aware of a global threat. The world, which is being drawn towards anti-immigration day by day, should know that immigrants have been forced to leave their homeland Therefore, in Favor of fighting against immigrants, we should fight against the agents of forced migration, not against its victims. In such a situation where there is a serious threat to global security, the role of art and artist is questioned again.
Bahar Arfan, ‘From Guantanamo Prison Until August 15’, 2023. Photo: Wais uddin Mohammadi, Offenbach, Germany. Selected for AFI’24 by Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in eXiLe e.V.
Bahar Arfan, ‘From Guantanamo Prison Until August 15’, 2023. Photo: Wais uddin Mohammadi, Offenbach, Germany. Selected for AFI’24 by Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in eXiLe e.V.
Bahar Arfan, ‘From Guantanamo Prison Until August 15’, 2023. Photo: Wais uddin Mohammadi, Offenbach, Germany. Selected for AFI’24 by Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in eXiLe e.V.
Bahar Arfan was born in 2000 in Tehran. She completed her studies in her homeland and entered Kabul University in 2018. After the fall of the republic, Bahar immigrated to Germany and is currently a student at " University Of Art and Design Offenbach". She is an official member of Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in Exile e.V.
Due to the situation of war and significant gender inequality in Afghanistan, her artistic endeavors have focused on violence against women. She is now working on new project, to expose the patriarchal culture in the society, and asks questions as why are women imprisoned in Afghanistan despite their freedom, and why are women subjected to a variety of forms of violence in general? Circumstances include intellectual violence, Political violence, family mindset, from the right to choose to their participation in society and politics, influences her activities.