Fatimah Hossaini

On August 15, 2021, media around the world announced the capture of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, by the Taliban. Behind the media story, behind the figures, behind the laws, each more absurd than the last, hide personal stories, faces, lives that change forever. Fatimah Hossaini was born in 1993 in Tehran, Iran. His grandparents had left their country, Afghanistan, during the war against the Soviet Union. This is how Fatimah spent her childhood far from Afghanistan. The omnipresent racism in Iranian institutions towards Afghans made her understand from a very young age that she would never be recognized as an Iranian. In 2013, while studying at the University of Tehran, she had to return to Afghanistan for administrative formalities. This first return to his roots is an electric shock. After obtaining her degree in photography at the University of Tehran, she went to produce photo reports in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central Asia, before being offered a position at the University of Kabul (Afghanistan) where she settled permanently from 2018. His life was then built between Kabul and Tehran until the Taliban came to power. Threatened by the latter, it is the beginning of exile for Fatimah.

Fatimah found refuge in France, first at the Atelier des artistes en exile, before joining the residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. She takes her photographs with her. As historians of contemporary art, we must think about the images that will mark our time. What will be the images that will mark the start of the 21st century? There are works for which we do not need to argue or convince. Because it's obvious. The images taken by Fatimah Hossaini have gone and continue to go around the world, on social networks or in our more traditional media. They will continue to be a reference in the decades that follow. His work is a piece of history. From the History of Afghanistan, but also from the history of all of us. Because we have all been confronted with his photographs. In 10 years, we will find them in our children's history books.

In Afghanistan, Fatimah Hossaini has centered her artistic practice around questions of identity and gender. In Iran, a very dark image of Afghan women has always been portrayed. However, when she went there, she found herself confronted for the first time with their strength, their resistance and their beauty. This is how her series “Beauty Amid War" was born, which documents the daily lives of Afghan women outside the constraints of patriarchal oppression and gender restrictions of their country. Far from the dark niqab, the women she photographs are dressed in traditional Afghan dresses. Images that contrast with the permanent discourse around war and the burqa conveyed in the West. Fatimah Hossaini's work speaks of something else. Her photographs speak of the beauty of Afghan women, of diversity. culture of her country, but above all the common points that unite Afghan women with other women around the world. Do we really need to say how courageous these women are? Yes, they have courage, it's heartbreaking? screen.