Asia-Pacific, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

CHILE: Capturing the Soul of Afghanistan – in Pictures

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Nov 30 2006 (IPS) - An Afghani woman, swathed in traditional Muslim attire, stands halfway down a stairway, her arms crossed and her head slightly bowed. She is alone, inside an old, dark building, lit up only by the flash of the camera.

This is one of the images in an exhibit on “Kabul, leaving the shadows”, by Chilean photographer Tomás Munita, who spent 2005 portraying the city’s misery and hopes in war-torn Afghanistan, where there is a strong U.S. and European military presence.

The exhibition will run through Dec. 15 at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Fine Arts Museum) in downtown Santiago, as part of the second Chilean “Foto América” biennial festival of photography. It consists of 31 images and 180 portraits taken on a digital camera.

Munita, 31, worked as a photojournalist for the U.S. news agency Associated Press (AP) last year, after having worked for several Chilean newspapers and traveling around the world, taking pictures that immortalised “ordinary people,” as he put it.

In Afghanistan he trained his lens on everyday scenes: children playing happily on the swings in a dirt square, men relaxing in a public bath or mosque, the Persian new year celebrations, the hubbub of a bird market.

But he also recorded the difficult conditions faced by a family living in the middle of a scrap heap, the wrinkled hands of a man holding several bullet cartridges, a ruined theatre, or a young boy selling watches.

“As a photojournalist, apart from news photographs, I set out to portray the city at a critical time, when there was still hope of emerging from the cycle of destruction,” Munita told IPS.

In 2004 Hamid Karzai was elected president of Afghanistan, three years after Western forces led by the United States overthrew the Taliban regime, accused of protecting Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist Al Qaeda network allegedly responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 strikes on New York and Washington.

Although his life was never directly in danger, Munita recalls some tough moments. “I participated in military operations all over the country, and there were many bomb blasts in the capital, and trips to danger zones. I also took some blows in protests that were difficult to control, with all the tension and shouting,” he recalled.

Nevertheless, he perceived “a great deal of hope on the part of the people for improving their lives and rebuilding what they had lost during the war: the canals, houses and roads. But unfortunately the country isn’t finding it easy to leave its recent violent past behind,” he said.

What stands in the way of reconstruction? Munita prefers not to talk about politics, but he cannot turn his back on reality. “There is a lot of corruption, killings of civilians, hatred and weapons in the country,” he noted, before questioning the effectiveness of foreign troops and the lack of a clear political direction on the part of the Karzai administration.

“I tried to capture the spirit of the people, the climate in this country that is struggling to get back on its feet, that is sunk in the past, forgotten, where people endure great suffering and there is so much hunger and pain, but where there is also a vital energy difficult to find in other places. They are marvellous people,” he said.

An important part of “Kabul, leaving the shadows” are the 180 portraits of Afghani children, young people, adults and older people.

Munita said the curious thing was that every one of these people stopped him in the street and asked to be photographed. Perhaps that is why most of them are smiling broadly or laughing: bearded men in turbans or dishevelled and dirty children.

“It’s a game. Afghanis are very friendly and hospitable, and the camera was an excuse to interact with a foreigner, initiate a conversation, have a laugh,” said Munita, who plans to go back to Asia in 2007.

His exhibition, which was awarded the 2006 Leica “Oskar Barnack” Prize, has already been shown in Poland and France. Next year it will be exhibited in several galleries in the United States before returning to Europe.

Munita also won distinctions in two categories of the latest World Press Photo competition, for a photo-report on the tragic consequences of the earthquake in Kashmir province in northwest India in October 2005.

In addition, he was awarded the 2005 “Young Photographer” prize by the International Centre of Photography of New York.

Munita’s photographic essay is one of the 210 works comprising the “Foto America” festival, which is taking place in every Chilean region, including Isla de Pascua (Easter Island) from Nov. 8 to Dec. 17.

“Foto América” is a private initiative spearheaded by Chilean photographer Roberto Edwards, and inspired by other Latin American biennial festivals such as “Fotoseptiembre” in Mexico, “Mira Foto” in Perú and “Festival de la Luz” (“Festival of Light”) in Argentina.

For one month, public and private museums, art galleries and cultural centres all over the country open their doors to photographic displays.

True to its name, the “Foto América” festival includes works from five other countries of the region. Among them is the exhibition “Bolivia. Más allá del tiempo” (“Bolivia: Beyond Time”) created by 14 Bolivian artists, including Sandra Boulanger, Freddy Alborta and Cecilia Lampo, with photographs ranging from the early 20th century to the present.

One of the most popular activities at the festival is “Foto Libre” (“Free Photographs”), a massive exhibition set up in the busy Parque Forestal (forest park) in central Santiago, to be replicated this year in Valparaíso, 120 kilometres southwest of the capital. The idea is for everyone to take along and display photos they have at home.

“Foto América is the biggest event of its kind in Chile,” Verónica Besnier, one of the coordinators, told IPS. This year they expect even more than the one million spectators who showed up in 2004.

“The number of exhibits have risen from 160 to 210, and we have increased our presence in the regions. We want the largest possible number of spectators to visit the exhibitions and, hopefully, buy the works,” so that the emerging Chilean photography market can grow, Besnier said.

According to Besnier, “Chile is full of photographers, and the quality of their work has been improving.” However, she calls for more “boldness” and “innovation” among local artists.

“Chilean photography remains very traditional, mostly portraits and landscapes, although people are beginning to experiment in increasingly daring ways,” she said.