Sheenkai Alam Stanikzai
2nd runner up of the 2009 Freedom to Create Main Prize
Despite a rich cultural history stretching back thousands of years, Afghanistan was recently described as having a culture of nothingness. After the Soviet invasion in 1979, art and music were hijacked for propaganda. More recently, the brutal suppression of culture under the Taliban meant that art and culture were systematically destroyed, while music was banned. The world watched horrified as the Bamiyan Buddhas were demolished. The Taliban were also vicious in their treatment of women. They wanted to create secure environments where the chasteness and dignity of women may once again be sacrosanct. In reality, this resulted in public floggings and executions for violations of strict religious laws as well as forced marriages.
It was a decade ago that culture was obliterated in her country, and Sheenkai Alam Stanikzai is one of a generation of Afghans who grew up during the conflict without the release or benefit of art and music. After the fall of the Taliban, Sheenkai, who has grown up never listening to music or seeing a live play, is bravely attempting to reintroduce her country and people to the arts and their culture. Sheenkai's work explores the re-emergence of the Afghan spirit after years of oppression.
She explores the re-emergence of the Afghan spirit, after years of oppression, in her art. That she is female brings further poignancy to her work in the light of the brutality of the Taliban towards womens rights. Her installation piece, Chel Dokhtaraan, or The 40 Girls, symbolises the violent acts being perpetrated against females in Afghanistan and in neighbouring countries.
The title refers to an historical event when 40 Afghan women committed suicide by jumping into wells during an invasion. Many legends and accounts exist about Chel Dokhtaraan dating back to pre-Islamic times, but all focus on the honourable decision the women took in sacrificing their own lives. That was in the past, says Sheenkai. What is happening today is that women, more than 40, are dying every day in very different circumstances. Her work symbolises the violent acts - public executions, stonings, floggings and hangings - that are being perpetrated against females both in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries, in modern times.
Sheenkai's installation includes a model of a well, with miniature images on its mouth. Miniature painting has flourished when artists have been forbidden from drawing the human form. The use of miniatures here signifies constraints on freedom. The installation also includes a pato- part of traditional male dress, representing the male domination of Afghan society - and 41 calendars.
Each calendar carries the photograph and story of a girl, and the date of her violent death. On the first calendar in the series the most recent date is incomplete, and reads: 13.. (of the solar calendar). This represents the continuing theme of Chel Dokhtaraan, and the appalling question of who will be the next woman to die. The film that accompanies the piece shows a moving line of black ink accompanied by the sounds of water, fire and the wheel of a well. The audience becomes aware of an unknown hand, writing down the names of the 40 girls, and so determining their destiny. Finally, it is time for the next name to be written...
Sheenkai says that not only is it difficult to be taken seriously in Afghanistan as an artist - her own family thought it was just a hobby until her work started winning competitions - but the fact she is a woman has also increased the risk of expressing herself. It is very difficult, she says. I am an Afghan woman and it is hard to go out. But I always research every detail of my work and have to do this.
The issue that Sheenkai addresses is not surprisingly contentious in Afghanistan and she takes great personal risk by highlighting it within her country. She is sensitive to the feelings of the families of the victims too. For that reason, and out of respect for the women themselves, I deliberately blur the photographs, she says. Sheenkai is also working with other women artists to exhibit their work and help fill the void of nothingness in her community with art.
