By N. Ahmad
Women painters and miniaturists in Kabul city tell a similar story to Zan Times: since the Taliban took control, they’ve faced threats, censorship, bans, and restrictions. Their galleries and schools have been closed and the Taliban are forcing them to stay at home through threats as well as destruction of works of art.
“I was practicing painting with my students in a gallery when Taliban gunmen entered, saying, ‘Close this shop. Painting is illegal under sharia law,’ ” Tamana, a painting teacher in Kabul tells Zan Times. She established the gallery in 2019 in the Dasht-e-Barchi area of western Kabul. Soon she had 150 students, charging some students between 200 to 700 afghanis a month while also teaching for free to street children and orphans.
That ended when the Taliban came to her gallery. “They tore the paintings with images of girls and threw some of them on the ground and sealed the gate of the gallery,” Tamana adds. She says they threatened her life if she reopened her gallery.
She is now at home and has no customers as she’s not allowed to sell her artwork.
The Taliban closed all women-led art galleries and schools in Kabul, including art classes at the College of Fine Arts. And during the recent university entrance exams, girls were not allowed to choose arts, journalism, agriculture, or engineering.
Fariba specialized in miniatures, graduating from department of fine arts with a bachelor’s degree. She used to work at the Ministry of Information and Culture during the day, then spent the rest of the day working at her gallery. Her specialty is miniatures in the Behzad style. But after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, she was dismissed from the ministry, and then lost her arts job as well. “I taught 10 boys and girls the art of miniature in my workshop two days a week, but the Taliban closed it and forced me to stay at home,” she tells Zan Times.
“I am in a bad economic situation,” Fariba explains to Zan Times. “Women are not allowed to work as artists under the Taliban, and I know nothing else but this art.”
Men working in the arts are also affected. Though their galleries and schools remain open, they are not allowed to have female students or artists. “Before the Taliban took over, I had 180 students in my gallery, now I only have 40,” Ali Madadi, the manager of a painting gallery in western Kabul, says, under the condition that we do not name his gallery. “The girls who used to learn painting no longer attend.” They stopped coming after the Taliban visited his gallery and imposed restrictions on the girls, he explains.
Hasanat Sadat, 18, was learning to paint at the Asad Art Centre. In her paintings, she hopes to show the current situation of Afghan women, so that the world would know about the women’s suffering in Afghanistan. But she no longer goes to school. “Before, boys and girls used to work together in groups and learn painting together. One day the Taliban came to class, kicked the girls out, and said, ‘Don’t come back. This is not a women’s affair.’”
“Even though we attended separate classes afterward, the Taliban came back and humiliated us. As a result, the girls and I no longer attend class. These days, I mainly go there to ask the teacher about methods, and then I work at home,” she adds.
Other arts centres have had similar visits by the Taliban “One week ago, Taliban gunmen from the Police District 13 in Kabul came and stood in front of the centre, preventing girls and women from entering the premises. They were saying that painting is forbidden in Islam,” tells Shakila, who teaches painting at a centre in Kabul. The Taliban told the women to go home and do housework.
“We used to have 50 girls in our class before the Taliban took over,” Shakila says. “Since the Taliban warned us, there are now only seven girls in our class, including me. We also attend the class with the fear that the Taliban would appear and expel us at any moment.”
The continued crackdown by the Taliban on the cultural sector and heritage of Afghanistan was long feared. Immediately after the Taliban regained control of the country, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) issued a statement calling for the preservation of Afghanistan’s cultural diversity and emphasized “the need for a safe environment for the ongoing work of the country’s cultural heritage professionals and artists, who play a central role for Afghanistan’s national cohesion and social fabric.”
