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Entries Tagged 'AFGHANISTAN' ↓
how to read a war carpet
October 23rd, 2010 — AFGHANISTAN, READING, LOOKING, LEAKING, MOPPING UP
is it really this bad? Amin Saikal’s state of the nation in Afghanistan
October 19th, 2010 — AFGHANISTAN, READING, LOOKING, LEAKING, MOPPING UP
Amin Saikal’s SMH article sees UN-brokered regional cooperation as the only way out of a downward spiral in Afghanistan.
Afghan Star (Pop Idol)
October 18th, 2010 — AFGHANISTAN, READING, LOOKING, LEAKING, MOPPING UP
a very watchable alternative view of life in Afghanistan at Sociological Images
surrealism
September 29th, 2010 — AFGHANISTAN, DIVERSIONS, READING, LOOKING, LEAKING, MOPPING UP
It is a little-known fact that Rene Magritte visited Afghanistan as a young man. Astrally…
Burka Blues
September 24th, 2010 — AFGHANISTAN, READING, LOOKING, LEAKING, MOPPING UP
is not without controversy. See here on YouTube…
view with care
September 13th, 2010 — AFGHANISTAN, PHOTOGRAPHY, READING, LOOKING, LEAKING, MOPPING UP
See Chris Strickland picturing the scourge of Afghanistan: land mines. And here’s how they warn the locals. As seen in Herat.
modernity by the truckload
September 8th, 2010 — AFGHANISTAN
This little carpet arrived from Herat the other day. Tradition meets Modernity. Head-on. The (scrambled) text tells us it was made on the 25th in the first month of 1377 (1998), on a “Tuesday” [verb unintelligible] “with laughter” [or "a smile"]. I’m not sure of its proper attribution, some say “Lori Pambak”… What’s really appealing about the representation of the blue truck is its three-dimensionality. Such 3D and isometric projections appear in the earliest war carpets of the 1980s – with some precedents from the 1970s.
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Australia in Afghanistan: four suggestions
August 17th, 2010 — AFGHANISTAN, READING, LOOKING, LEAKING, MOPPING UP
ANU’s Amin Saikal puts forward four suggestions with regards to Australia’s “mission” in Afghanistan. With a ten-year timeframe.
Pakistan’s continuing role in Afghanistan
July 26th, 2010 — AFGHANISTAN, READING, LOOKING, LEAKING, MOPPING UP
Read Carlotta Gall in the NYT.
pixelated portraiture
July 23rd, 2010 — AFGHANISTAN
The knotted carpet is the oldest form of digital art. While a good likeness is hard to achieve when the medium is inherently pixelated, a “portrait” such as this may serve many causes.
The text above these three figures is not easy to translate. However this triple portrait is said to be of the turn-of-century King, Habibullah Khan, and his two successors, his brother Nasrullah Khan (who ruled for a week after his brother’s hunting accident assassination) and his third son Amanullah Khan, who lasted until 1929. Amanullah Khan is now revered as the moderniser who was responsible for disposing of the British in 1921.
Afghan carpet makers still produce images of Amanullah, now updated with modern militaria to reference the current conflict. Such imagery serves as an evocation of a more peaceful past, as history morphs into allegory, and as the roles of historical figures become mythologised.
