Willy-Brandt-Haus | Lela Ahmadzai – »Undaunted: Four women in Kabul«

The Society for Humanistic Photography (GfHF) and Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus (FkWBH) present:

»Undaunted: Four women in Kabul«

Lela Ahmadzai

Opening: Tuesday, November 24, 2015, 19.30h
Exhibition: November 25, 2015 – January 24, 2016
curated by Gisela Kayser and Katharina Mouratidi

Artist Talk: Thursday, January 21, 2016, 17h
with Lela Ahmadzai and the curators Gisela Kayser and Katharina Mouratidi

Opening hours
Tue-Sun 12-18h
Free Admission, ID card required

The exhibition is closed on the following days:
Nov 26 & 27, Dec 24–26, Dec 31, Jan 1, 2016

In her photographs and short films, the photographer and multimedia journalist Lela Ahmadzai shows the lives of four women in Kabul. Both the images and the words of the women themselves reveal the balancing act that women in Afghanistan perform between self-determination and their traditional roles, and document how brave and strong every woman in Afghanistan must be to be able to earn a living in a profession of her own choice.

Over a ten-year period, Lela Ahmadzai repeatedly visited a dozen women. She chose the following four for the present exhibition:

Shinkai Karokhail is a parliamentarian, an ambitious career woman from the upper class, active in women’s rights, experienced on the diplomatic stage both in Kabul and internationally.

Reza Guel runs her own bakery. She works long hours every day, bent over the traditional clay oven that has been dug into the ground. In this way she is able to feed her children and finance her husband’s opium addiction.

Saba Sahar works as a policewoman and produces crime thrillers. Her mission is to increase both respect and recognition for women and the police.

Pary Ghulami is still young and already a star – she performs as an actress and as a pop singer. She gets looked down upon and threatened, but is also envied and admired.

In fascinating images a multi-layered portrait of the women and a very intimate insight into their situation is created. The work of Lela Ahmadzai is a poetically dense time document that directs attention to current Afghanistan: a land of strong women who fight for their rights and for their freedom undaunted.

Curated by Gisela Kayser, Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus and Katharina Mouratidi, Society for Humanistic Photography (GfHF).

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Parallel to this exhibition, the exhibition »BELOVED AFGHANISTAN – Photographs by Anja Niedringhaus« will be opening as well.

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