By Hunter Oberst
THE KEENE SENTINEL
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. — After fleeing Afghanistan from the Taliban, a collective of artists has settled in Brattleboro, and they have taken to adorning the downtown area with temporary paintings to pay homage to murals destroyed in their home country.
According to a news release from the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC), one of the first things the Taliban did when it regained control of Afghanistan in August 2021 was whitewash murals that had been painted on bomb blast walls in the capital city of Kabul. The artists, members of a 50-person Afghan-led artist group called ArtLords, fled their country for safety.
Among 100 of those refugees settled into Brattleboro were five members of the ArtLords: Marwa, Negina, Meetra, Zuhra and Abdul.
Negina said in the news release that although their murals were whitewashed, the Taliban forgot that art cannot be stopped.
“I left Afghanistan with only a small backpack,” she said. “I wish I could have taken all my good memories, my family members, friends and my country with me, but I couldn’t. The three things I took with me were a sketchbook, pen and paints — because I believed in the power of art. I have learned that good art educates and creates empathy, and empathy leads to change.”
The artists partnered with BMAC and a Boston-based public art group called Tape Art to honor the murals destroyed by the Taliban.
Their work began Aug. 8 by creating 20 large murals on the sides of buildings, painted over removable tape. The effort concluded on Aug. 12, and the murals will remain up until the end of the month.
One of the first murals the Taliban destroyed was one Negina had helped create. She said in the news release that the mural conveyed the suppression of women, and showed Zohra, Afghanistan’s first women’s orchestra.
“Later, when I found out that the mural had been whitewashed, I was very sad, but it also confirmed what we already knew — that our art was very powerful and represented a real threat to the Taliban and their noxious ideas,” she said.
The project, called “Honoring Honar,” meaning honoring art, is aimed at recreating fragments of the murals destroyed by the Taliban, including the Zohra mural.
Critical support for “Honoring Honar” and for Brattleboro’s Afghan community in general has been provided by the Multicultural Community Center of Southern Vermont, an arm of the Ethiopian Community Development Council, the federal resettlement agency for southern Vermont, the news release states.
Anyone interested in seeing the murals can find a map of their locations on the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center’s website.
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