By Vicente Vera
Barriers known as “blast walls” have been erected around the city of Kabul, Afghanistan during the past four decades of conflict, constructing a maze within the city.
Built by Afghan government officials, oligarchs and foreign military as a way to protect their own homes and structures from the blasts of nearby explosions, the walls are irregularly constructed in parts of the city.
Self-proclaimed “artivist” and Kabul native, Kabir Mokamel, said he felt under siege by the walls.
“They make Kabul streets really narrow and deadly for us because [officials] live behind the walls, and all the terrorism happens within these corridors,” Mokamel said.
With thousands of steel and concrete blast walls throughout the city towering up to eight meters high and no way to get rid of them, Mokamel came up with a way to make the walls disappear – painting over them.
He and his artistic partner Omaid Sharifi spoke at the Student Union Theater Wednesday about how the barriers led to the creation of their art collective, ArtLords.
“Imagine San Jose [State] being covered up by these big blast walls, it’s suffocating and it makes it look like a prison,” Sharifi said to the crowd of about 40 student. “Kabul is becoming that type of prison.”
The ArtLords said they sought to change not only the public perception of the city’s blast walls, but also that of art in Afghanistan. A country with a government . that has not fully realized the merits of art.
“If you hear about Afghanistan, you hear about drug lords, war lords, the corrupt lords, even though ‘lord’ is such a beautiful word,” Sharifi said. “They thought a lord would come with a gun or an RPG. We thought we could change the whole notion of ‘lord.’ ”
Influenced by modern artists from Banksy to Andy Warhol, the ArtLords said they took brushes to the war-torn walls in Afghanistan and created around 1,700 paintings.
But Mokamel and Sharifi have faced opposition from groups within Kabul such as practitioners of Sharia, a canonical Islamic law, who took offense to their portraits of women.
Despite the blowback, only three of their paintings have been destroyed.
“With every brush of stroke and paint that [is] put on the wall, that much of the wall disappears,” Sharifi said.
Multiple replicas of their murals and street paintings, which stood on display all over the Student Union Theater, mimicked the texture of the blast walls.
“It just gives [students] that context,” Mokamel said regarding the deliberate decision to give the canvas presented at the Student Union Theater a wall-like feel.
During the roundtable discussion hosted by journalism and justice studies lecturer Halima Kazem-Stojanovic, both artists spoke about their lifelong work and efforts to engage hundreds of other artists in Kabul.
“You guys are celebrities in Afghanistan, but Al Jazeera also reports that you have been called ‘infidels’ and that you should be killed for your work,” said Kazem-Stojanovic, who spent 12 years as a reporter in Afghanistan.
Both artists acknowledged their work comes with safety risks, but they made a conscious decision to pursue “artivism” because of its positive impacts on the citizens of Kabul.
Those who feel impacted and empowered by the presence of the ArtLords often show their appreciation in subtle ways, Sharifi said.
“When you are painting on the street, somebody brings you green tea because they think the whole day you’ve been standing on a ladder and painting,” he said. “That’s how they show their love.”
Psychology sophomore Andrea Alcala said she came to the event as an extra credit opportunity, but stayed because the ArtLords’ story caught her attention.
“I genuinely thought it was interesting and I had my own questions to ask,” Alcala said. “I just found myself still taking notes and writing things down about what they had to say.”
Toward the end of the roundtable discussion, the conversation circled back to the 40 years of war Afghanistan and its citizens have endured.
“I’ve heard the American narrative that this country is not fixable,” Sharifi said. “Give us a chance, it hasn’t been barely 15, 16 years that we got the chance and resources to change something. Maybe in 10 years Afghanistan can really change.”
