Life and Nothing Else

Think Afghanistan and a couple of turbaned men and the Bamiyan Buddhas come rushing in ... war-scarred land, Mujahideen, Taliban, apartheid, war.

A photo exhibition titled ‘Life and Nothing Else’ (at the Max Mueller Bhavan) aims to showcase Afghanistan in its everyday light, as seen by the natives.

The catalog says that it all started with an idea to modify the way the world views Afghanistan. This could be done not by international journalists dispatched to capture exotic, aesthetically fine images of a war zone. So the Goethe-Institut Kabul in cooperation with the French media organization AINA and conducted by the German photographer Wolfgang Bellwinkel conducted a workshop in 2004 in Kabul to equip some locals with the basic skills of photography that they could then use to portray their homeland. The works of six artists are showcased in this exhibition. Living Rooms, Life in an Orphanage, Youth, Weddings, Religious life, Family life in Afghanistan are the chosen themes.

The photographs are not rich in the kind of beauty one is by now used to. But they deliver on the workshop’s aim – being to modify the way one looks at Afghanistan, how life goes on beyond all the violence that the world learns about.

‘Living Rooms’ across social strata are captured by one artist. Traditional carpets, pillows, curtains all mostly shades of crimson and red fight for space alongside the television, abstract paintings.

‘Life in an Orphanage’ reminded me of the orphanage in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Some of the photos in the catalog were more impressive than those displayed under this theme.

The photos displayed under ‘Youth’ weren’t very varying in that they do not capture images across the economic classes. There was one photo (in a jewelers shop) in the catalog though, which made up for it partly. But all the subjects pose for the photos and this does take away the candid, casual effect one would expect in this kind of exhibition. In his write-up, the artist talks about the limitation in photographing women for publication which is why we are to be content with seeing them only under ‘Family Life..’.

‘Weddings’ deprived of people could achieve only so much. I still feel even without any people in it, there should be more to a wedding than just the dais on which the couple would receive guests. (Or are there some restrictions there too?) But it does succeed in pushing away the drabness, sandy; grey that one has associated with the country.

‘Religious life’ mostly shot in shrines across the country had at least one photo of women in a place of worship. And another of a man at Namaz in his living room with a computer at the corner.

‘Family Life in Afghanistan’ by Farzana Wahidy ends up being the only window into an Afghan woman’s life. Families at leisure, women in the kitchen, lady and man out on the road, children playing in the background, kid sketching/playing while men of the family eat … wide variety on the whole.

It's all easy and dandy to be critical on the works; but it really was an awesome collection on the whole with or without the restrictions, limitations that the artistes had to work under. Look forward to seeing more of these.

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While I was looking up information on the Taliban regime and the like, I came across this on

NatGeo.