She Who Tells a Story: Female lens on Iran and the Arab world

In the Middle East, a number of pioneering female photographers have risen to prominence, using art to defy stereotypes and explore questions of identity in the changing region.

She Who Tells a Story, an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, features the work of 12 contemporary women photographers from Iran and the Arab world.

Curator Kristen Gresh told the BBC that the exhibit and accompanying book showcase the powerful, diverse work of these women and offer a different lens through which to view the politics and culture of the region.

Produced by Ashley Semler and Bill McKenna
Photographs courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Newsha Tavakolian, Gohar Dashti, Nermine Hammam, Shirin Neshat, Rana El Nemr, Rania Matar, Tanya Habjouqa, Rula Halawani, Boushra Almutawakel, Shadi Ghadirian and Lalla Essaydi.

Afghanistan wants its cultural heroes back

Interred a quarter century ago in Pakistan, the remains of Afghan poet Ustad Khalilullah Khalili now lie in a forlorn corner of Kabul University, brought here to be reburied so that no one else can lay claim to the revered poet-philosopher.
He has no epitaph; only a few wilted bouquets lie at the grave of Afghanistan's most prominent 20th century poet. Three policemen guard the site.
But if President Hamid Karzai - who ordered the remains be disinterred from a grave in the Pakistani city of Peshawar last month - has his way, the reburial will become an assertion of Afghan culture over encroachment by Pakistan and Iran.
"We brought him back from Pakistan because he was our poet and scholar," said Mohammad Hussain Yamin, head of the Persian and Dari department at Kabul University.
"We don't want someone in future to say that he belonged to Pakistan just because he lived the final years of his life there."
The assertion of cultural sovereignty is part of an effort to unite Afghanistan and prove it can stand on its own after most foreign troops leave at the end of 2014.
The government says it wants an end to "foreign interference", usually a reference to Pakistan, but also Iran with which it is locked in a fierce debate over ownership of some of the greatest poets and philosophers in the region.
Poetry is big in Afghanistan, from the time of the kings of the 10th century to the present day, permeating every level of society from children in school to warlords and even the austere Taliban who study long works of classical Persian poetry as part of their education in religious schools.
It's the thread that runs between Afghanistan's often warring ethnic groups whether Tajik, Hazara, Pashtun, Uzbek, Turkmen, Nuristani, Baluch, or any of the many other sub-groups and clans.

But along with the death and destruction of the past three decades, Afghans say they also lost a chunk of their rich cultural heritage with Iran, Pakistan and even Turkey claiming parts of it.
Many, like Khalili, left the country to escape the wars and died in faraway lands which slowly began to claim them as their own, Afghanistan says.
Now it aims to get its heritage back.
"Iran wants to show the world it had a glorious past. This has been going on for years, they have been claiming many of our literary figures as their own. We cannot remain silent," said Jalal Noorani, an adviser at the Information and Culture Ministry.
Debate has long raged over Rumi, arguably the greatest Persian poet, but now as Afghanistan begins to stand on its feet, the claims and counter-claims have intensified not only over him but also others.
Rumi, known as Mawlana Jalal-ud-Din Balkhi in Afghanistan and Mevlevi in Iran, was born in the 13th century in Balkh which was at the time an eastern part of the Persian empire of Khorasan but is now a province in northern Afghanistan.
His family moved and they eventually settled in present-day Turkey where he wrote some of the greatest mystic Sufi poetry in Persian.
Today, all three countries regard him as their national poet even though his poetry itself transcends borders, religion and ethnic divides.
Rumi's poetry is displayed on the walls of Tehran, sung in Iranian music and read in Iranian school books. Iranians are known to live with his poetry.
But Yamin says what is indisputable is that his origins were in Afghanistan. Rumi's occupies pride of place on a billboard in Yamin's room that gives details of the birth dates and place of birth of poets that others have laid claim to.
"We have repeatedly given evidence that these figures belong to Afghanistan, not Iran. When we sit down with the Iranians and discuss these issues, they don't offer any evidence. They say in the past both countries were one, so they call all these poets, philosophers Iranian," said Yasmin.

Iranian embassy officials could not be reached for comment and did not respond to an email.
In the past, Iranians have challenged Afghanistan to a test of history, suggesting they were waking up a bit late to claim inheritance.
At a concert in Kabul a few years ago, an Iranian singer challenged any member of the audience to speak for two minutes on Rumi since they claimed he was their own. Afghan authorities took offence and the concert had to end hastily.
"Afghans are a bit late at this. Iran and Turkey have stolen their thunder," said Mohammad Taqi, a U.S.-based columnist for Pakistan's Daily Times newspaper who has written extensively on the Pashtun heartland straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Iran, he said, had milked Rumi and the whirling dervishes that his poetry inspired by setting up cultural centers on the pattern of Germany's Goethe Institute.
Still, this new burst of cultural revivalism in Afghanistan can help bridge the distance between the Tajiks and the Hazaras, and to a certain extent the Pashtuns, he said.
"A supra-ethnic Afghan identity needs non-violent icons."

Reuters

Stone carvers return to Bamiyan valley

Stone carvers defy Taliban to return to the Bamiyan valley

Under perfectly carved niches that once held dozens of small buddha statues, the purposeful tap of chisel on stone echoed over the Bamiyan valley for the first time in centuries.
Twelve young Afghans had gathered to take the first tentative steps back towards a stone-working tradition that once made their home famous, at a workshop in a cave gouged out as a monastery assembly hall more than 1,000 years ago.

The cave-hall was part of a complex built around two giant buddhas that loomed serenely over Bamiyan for about 15 centuries – until the Taliban government condemned them as un-Islamic in early 2001 and blew them up.

"I was interested in this course because I want to restore our culture," said Ismael Wahidi, a 22-year-old student of archeology at Bamiyan University, who set aside more conventional studies for a week to learn how to turn a lump of stone into a sculpture. "If you want to destroy a people, you first destroy their heritage and history."

The workshop, held just a few metres from where the larger buddha's face was once carved from the cliff face, aimed to reintroduce stone-carving to the valley by showing that creating basic pieces is easy, even if mastery takes years.

Under the guidance of Afghan, American and German artists, the group picked the stone they would shape from some of the rich seams of marble, quartzite and travertine [a form of limestone] that thread through the local mountains, foothills of the Himalayas. Then they set to work, with chisels forged by local blacksmiths from the suspension springs of old cars. "We wanted to give young people the idea that it is possible to do stone carving with what you have here," said Bert Praxenthaler, a sculptor and conservationist who has been working on the valley's monuments for several years, including stabilising the niches that once held the buddhas.

The Bamiyan valley is pockmarked with hundreds of caves that were once part of sumptuous monasteries, packed with statues and lavishly painted with frescoes. This rich artistic heritage was funded by centuries of taxes on caravans passing through what is now an isolated backwater, but was once a wealthy and important stop on the silk road.
"There must have been at least 2,000 years of sculptural tradition," said Praxenthaler. "Even excavating the caves is a kind of architectural sculpture. It was not just hacking holes into the cliff but also shaping the rooms, and they are quite extraordinary."
That tradition was probably killed off around 1,000 years ago, Praxenthaler said, when the valley was conquered by Mahmoud of Ghazni, a leader whose epithet suggested little interest in figurative art. "Anyone who calls themselves the 'destroyer of idols' probably wouldn't support further stone carving," Praxenthaler said.

Sculpture has remained largely off limits in Afghanistan because of strict Islamic prohibitions on idolatry. Depictions of any human or animal are strongly discouraged in art, and calligraphy, floral and geometric patterns dominate the country's more recent cultural heritage, from the majestic minaret of Jam, to mosques and monuments in cities such as Kabul and Kandahar.

"As you know, extremists often make propaganda about idols. But this is our heritage, not something religious," said 20-year-old Abdur Rahman Rosta, one of the student sculptors. He added that that in Bamiyan itself the sculptors were feted. The valley's people suffered badly under the Taliban, and have little sympathy for their hardline views, and Bamiyan has remained one of the most peaceful places in Afghanistan as insurgent violence spreads elsewhere.
The provincial governor came to a small ceremony unveiling the sculptures, and picked up a chisel herself as musicians played in a niche that once held the cave's largest statue – and might perhaps one day hold another.
"During this course we realised we had much more ability for working with stone than we could have imagined, and we understood we can do so much more," said Jawed Mohammadi, a 20-year-old history student at the university, who used the week to chisel out a human face. "The buddhas were destroyed, but maybe we can build them again."


(from The Guardian)