Aman Mojadidi: Interview with Afghan/American installation artist [ English | Dari]
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Interview with Afghan/American installation artist [ English | Dari]
Ariel Nasr interviews Aman Mojadidi in Kabul for REVOLVE. Ariel Nasr has worked for the National Film Board of Canada since 2006 and is an independent documentary filmmaker based in Kabul.
How long have you been producing art in Afghanistan, and what is it like being an artist in Afghanistan today?
I’ve been producing art off and on, with breaks in-between for studies or work, for the last 15 years or so. I moved to Kabul in 2003, but didn’t really get into producing art here until a couple years later. It’s interesting, with a long history in traditional arts like calligraphy and woodcarving, there is a certain pride in the arts. But when it comes to modern or contemporary works, everything is stuck in the sort of plein-air, landscape works of a couple Afghans considered the fathers of modern painting, like Breshna and Maimangai. Contemporary art then, in the sense of a new, conceptual approach to art-making is developing. It’s still not valued. Being a contemporary artist here is both fresh and stimulating, but is also frustrating. Like many places in the world, as an artist you live a bit on the fringe of society, but unlike other places their isn’t really a community of support in the form of many other artists, galleries, museums, exhibitions, etc.
How has the current political, social, and/or economic climate in Afghanistan influenced you and your artistic practice?
Well, I think it’s impossible to live here and create art here without being influenced. All of these areas can be almost bottomless pits of creative fodder. Although my work has always looked outwards at the global condition for inspiration, living here in Afghanistan you don’t need to look out; that global condition is right here, now, just outside your door, on the street, in the air that you breathe, on the faces of mothers, in the laughs of children. My work has taken on a much more critical edge, addressing political issues like jihad and corruption, religious issues like oppression and censorship, economic issues of poverty and rapidly growing disparities in wealth. In some ways, I feel trapped by that, wanting to expand beyond the conditions around me, but at the same time I think I’m addressing things that have been addressed very little through art either here or abroad. Perhaps one day my life here will take root somehow and become the norm, and I’ll once again begin to look outwards for that global condition.
While producing your own art, you also work towards the promotion and development of contemporary art in Afghanistan. What is the state of contemporary art in Afghanistan today and what have been the greatest challenges?
Contemporary art is still a developing idea here. Even the word contemporary is limited in its Dari form here. In Dari, you use the word muaser and so contemporary art becomes hunar-e-muaser. But muaser means contemporary only in the temporal sense, so that any painting done in modern times or in the present would be deemed contemporary. Therefore, definitions and understandings of contemporary in respect to conceptual approaches to art-making rather than art made at a particular moment in time are still nascent. Work has been done, and continues to be done, mostly through non-governmental organizations focusing on the subject. But the greatest challenges include the availability of materials (there’s one store in Kabul that sells proper canvas and acrylic paints are limited beyond house paint), the lack of a community of support as I mentioned earlier, but mostly it is the lack of value given to the concept and production of contemporary art in Afghanistan. However, the first is surmountable as we develop the notion that art does not simply men painting, but rather comprises the use of a variety of materials and media, and the second can be side-stepped partially through the use of the Internet to research what’s happening in art globally and through bringing international artists here for workshops. The last challenge is still perhaps the greatest, as this is a perceptual paradigm, whereby abstract or conceptual works of art are not understood, and thereby not respected. We’re working on that.
In your artist statement, you talk about producing work in a world that is simultaneously globalizing and fracturing. How do you see this happening in Afghanistan today?
This is an evolving idea, so I’ll try and explain it clearly. In the last 9 years or so, since the U.S.-led invasion, Afghanistan has sprung onto the world stage in the ways in which globalization manifests itself, primarily economically and culturally. Markets and media become the primary tools through which globalization shapes societies it encounters. Through the Internet, Afghans have access to information that was never available before and through interaction with foreigners by working for foreign aid, donor, and military institutions, Afghans are exposed to new ideas, thoughts, and perceptions. Cultural borders seem more open than they have been since the days of the modernizing kings. However, the country continues to fragment on gender, religious, Afghan-foreigner, and most damaging, along ethnic lines. Social cohesion on a national level still doesn’t exist in any significant way, and even as Afghans are becoming more and more knowledgeable about other cultures outside Afghanistan and localizing that knowledge (listening to music, dressing a certain way, possibly even being more liberal in respect to women’s rights), they are at the same time exacerbating old and creating new fissures among and between themselves and others.
You also talk about internal and external conflicts becoming indistinguishable and equally personal. How do you see this manifesting in your own life?
While we struggle to resolve our own problems and conflicts, we are simultaneously impacted by an attack on a hotel or group of pilgrims being aired on the news. We live now in a world where ongoing conflicts can be found in every region, and through the dissemination of news through international networks such as BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, and on-line news we can witness these conflicts live, 24-hours a day. For me, living with my own internal conflicts, be they issues of religion, identity, relationships, coupled with the global conflicts carried in the media, and tripled with living in a conflict zone has created a strange nexus where no conflict feels distant or separate from the reality within which I live. It all seems connected somehow, as if a state of conflict is simply what must be accepted; many of which are not conflicts that can or will be resolved but that just make up a part of the personal and global identity. At a certain point it becomes less that I feel as though as I’m in or at conflict with anything, but rather that I am conflict, as a state of being.
Much of your art has social or political commentary. Do you think art, or your art, has to have a message behind it, be it political or social commentary and/or critique?
Yes, most of my work, even before moving to Kabul, has had this element; often times almost blatant messages or concepts that disallow escape from the point I’m trying to make. But at the same time, I create work that is personal, and more emotionally driven. Interestingly though, and maybe partly connected to the discussion above, even my personal works have led people to draw political messages out of them. However, I don’t think art absolutely must have such commentary or critique. It doesn’t have to be “art with a message” or “art with a cause” behind it. Art is creative expression, and that expression can manifest itself in a variety of ways, without bounds.
How do you see your artistic practice developing in the future?
It’s hard to say because I’m constantly inspired by things I see, read, and experience. This inspiration is ongoing and relates both to the themes represented in my art and the process of making art. This explains why my latest works have been so particularly influenced by Afghan culture, society, experience, and why the materials used in producing the works also reflect that, such as war relics, articles from the local bazaar, used artillery. What I would like to see is something I’d like to see more generally with Afghan artists working here and abroad. There is a tendency to confine Afghan artists (whether being confined by the art world or confining themselves) to making work that tells the Afghan story, which expresses their experience in war, their life as a refugee, their identity as whatever they identify with, but these are always expected to be clearly ‘Afghan’ (however that is being defined). Therefore, if an Afghan artist paints something that does include some sort of iconic image (a woman in a burqa) that is clearly ‘Afghan’ or if their focus is not on an Afghan theme, then it is rarely considered. I can see the necessity of this for now, as there is a lot to say about Afghanistan and the Afghan experience that is not being said; I do the exact same thing. But what I would like to see is the day when an Afghan artist ceases being an Afghan artist and becomes an artist who is from Afghanistan. This artist may not only create work about subjects and concepts far outside the borders of their Afghan identity, but will be recognized for these works. Just as an artist who happens to be French is not expected to only produce French-related works, the artist who happens to be Afghan should also not be restricted by these expectations. This freedom to create must first be granted to me by me, before I can expect it from anyone else.
Do you consider yourself as an American artist? Afghan artist? Both? Neither?
This is more of an identity question than an art-related one. First, I would have to know whether I consider myself to be an Afghan or an American. As for being an artist, I can confirm that quite confidently. As for the rest, I think about it a lot, and part of my focus in the Master’s degree I did in cultural anthropology was looking at the cultural politics of identity and biculturalism. Afghan-American became the ‘nom du jour’ and so I was that for a while. But in the U.S., most Americans identify me on sight as a foreigner, and here in Afghanistan most Afghans identify me as a foreigner on sight as well. I was born in the U.S., my parents are Afghan, and I’m fluent in both English and Dari; it could end there. But I’ve started to think more about how one’s identity has become almost taken out of one’s own control, and is more and more defined by others. So I think about post-identity possibilities. In answer to your question using the options you’ve given me, I guess that would mean ‘neither.’ But beyond that I’m not sure. I’m still contemplating this one.
Where do you consider home to be?
In the words of Tom Waits, “Anywhere I lay my head I call my home.” I believe that to a large extent. I can’t say that there’s any specific town, city, place that I consider home. I’ve been thinking about this more recently. I was in the state where I was born a couple years ago, Florida, and spent some time there visiting with friends and family. It was summertime. Later, speaking about this exact subject with a friend, it occurred to me that ‘home’ for me is more about a sort of intrinsic feeling towards the natural environment of a place. The humidity that rests like a blanket on your skin, the afternoon thunderstorms rumbling through like clockwork, the air-filling chirp of the cicadas at night, this is what feels like home. It wasn’t that some of my family and oldest friends still lived there or even that I was born there, but it was more about the natural connection I feel with the environment. I see this as part of what I call the ‘geography of self’ which is filled with the different sensations and experiences and connections we have with the various places we find ourselves in the world at different times. I guess home is in the Spanish moss growing on oak trees, in the alligator-filled rivers, and in the late-night glow of the lightening bug. I have some thoughts for work inspired by this idea. Let’s see.
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