He considered himself the voice of Afghanistan, and responsible for exposing it to the world. Jean-Pierre Perrin , a French writer and journalist organized a photo exhibition that tries to explain why the war took place in Afghanistan. Accordingly, the following questions were asked in order to understand the exhibition more:
Q: What was the criteria of choosing the photos displayed in this exhibition?
A: There were two criteria: one is the quality of the picture and the photographers who are mostly well-known in the exhibition. Two, the photos should express feelings and emotions, they should explain part of the story of Afghanistan.
Q: What is the purpose of showing the war wounds in photos?
A: Because many women here are burning themselves alive because they couldn’t handle the oppression from their husbands and government anymore. That’s very interesting because the women accepted to show their burns nakedly so it`s a sign of liberation.
Q: Why is the focus on the women’s lifestyle rather than the political integration or participation in war?
A: Simply because we don’t have good photos for that. If we had, we would’ve definitely put them.
Q: How does the process of consent work especially with women?
A: I don`t know. The photos were already existing and there is no direct relationship between me and the photographers but all of them gave us the permission to publish.
Q: Do you think that this exhibition would help with the exposure of the afghani war?
A: Well, I hope. In all the meetings of the most powerful countries such as the G7 summit Afghanistan was never discussed, as if it didn’t exist. So, the goal is to show the world as much as we can what is going on there. It is our duty to talk about the war this is forgotten by the « big » countries.
Yasmeen Sakka and Jana Barakat