TEXTILE CREATION, PHOTOGRAPHY, PAINTING, INSTALLATION, FILM
Pascal Convert, Latif Eshraq, Ferrante Ferranti, Morteza Herati, Zahra Khodadadi,
Zolaykha Sherzad, Mohsin Taasha, Naseer Turkmani
Photographs of witnesses of history by Ria Hackin and Marc Riboud
And two short films directed by Barmak Akram and Oriane Zérah
CURATOR: Guilda Chahverdi
This exhibition emerged from the meeting in 2023 between figures from Arles, passionate about textile art, Afghan culture, and Zolaykha Sherzad, who concluded an exhibition at the Musée Guimet (October 2022 – February 2023) On the Wire, textile creation of Afghan women. A sensitive dialogue between the lives clothed by thread, the art of weaving through time, and the history of Afghanistan. The exhibition highlights the body. It is first about the body of women, to which the artist Zolaykha Sherzad has dedicated her creations and her struggle for about twenty years, and then about the beings who have inhabited and continue to inhabit Afghanistan. The artists express its absence, the imprints of cruelty that mark it, the love of which it is a witness, the mourning that dilutes time, and the horizon, a source of hope and elevation.
The association Étoffe d'artistes, dedicated to textile art, supports textile artisans through the work of Zolaykha Sherzad and the Zarif Design workshop, which has been working since 2005 to preserve, in these times of conflict, a know-how that is at risk of disappearing forever. A central place is given to women, whose expertise in these traditions is often forgotten. Currently in Kabul, there is a training session in boutis stitching for young girls who have been excluded from school by the Taliban.
