Afghanistan War: The Artlords (part 1)
The Afganistan War started on the 7th October 2001, when the US invaded supported by the UK and Canada. Later this included 40 countries supporting the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan and was hugely affected by the Afghanistan war, in order to protect their buildings and embassies the government erected 20 foot high concrete walls. Over a decade of building these walls the city has become constricted.
After decades of war artists and peacemakers in Afghanistan have risen up against the war to campaign for peace. Artists want to help communities unite after spending so long being undermined by extremists.
Omaid Sharifi, has never lived outside the walls of Kabul, and decided to fight back against the war using just his paintbrush. The large walls that weaved across the city became the perfect blank canvas to make “negative psychological impact of blast walls on the people of Kabul into a positive visual experience”. In 2014 Sharifi co founded Artlords, a movement of artists and activists to establish social transformation and behavioural change in Kabul and Afganistan, through art and culture. There aims are to create “1. visual dialogue to entice people to express and talk around pressing social issues to affect change, 2. transform the aggressive face of Kabul spoiled by blast walls into a pleasant visual experience, 3. introducing creative methods to address social issues and taboos affecting behavioural change by employing the soft power of art and culture as a non intrusive method, 4. empowering people to start their own initiatives.”
Artlords have created a huge variety of murals painted across the ugly walls of Kabul. One mural in particular shows a pair of eyes staring outside the national intelligence agency. This mural speaks to the government and intelligence agencies in Kabul saying we see your corruption and nothing can be hidden from the peoples view. Many of these eye murals come with the slogan “I See You”, only after a few days of the painting being up it disappeared.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)
https://www.usip.org/publications/2016/08/deploying-art-against-war
https://www.artlords.co/about
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35811697
Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan and was hugely affected by the Afghanistan war, in order to protect their buildings and embassies the government erected 20 foot high concrete walls. Over a decade of building these walls the city has become constricted.
After decades of war artists and peacemakers in Afghanistan have risen up against the war to campaign for peace. Artists want to help communities unite after spending so long being undermined by extremists.
Omaid Sharifi, has never lived outside the walls of Kabul, and decided to fight back against the war using just his paintbrush. The large walls that weaved across the city became the perfect blank canvas to make “negative psychological impact of blast walls on the people of Kabul into a positive visual experience”. In 2014 Sharifi co founded Artlords, a movement of artists and activists to establish social transformation and behavioural change in Kabul and Afganistan, through art and culture. There aims are to create “1. visual dialogue to entice people to express and talk around pressing social issues to affect change, 2. transform the aggressive face of Kabul spoiled by blast walls into a pleasant visual experience, 3. introducing creative methods to address social issues and taboos affecting behavioural change by employing the soft power of art and culture as a non intrusive method, 4. empowering people to start their own initiatives.”
Artlords have created a huge variety of murals painted across the ugly walls of Kabul. One mural in particular shows a pair of eyes staring outside the national intelligence agency. This mural speaks to the government and intelligence agencies in Kabul saying we see your corruption and nothing can be hidden from the peoples view. Many of these eye murals come with the slogan “I See You”, only after a few days of the painting being up it disappeared.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)
https://www.usip.org/publications/2016/08/deploying-art-against-war
https://www.artlords.co/about
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35811697
