Abstract:
Afghan and Australian Artists’ Books Collaborations.
‘Unfolding Projects’ began as an intuitive gesture in identification with women in a country experiencing a conflict in which our own country, Australia, was involved. The project has been a vehicle for exchanges between Australian women artists and women acquiring literacy skills in the Organisation for Promoting Afghan Women’s Capabilities (OPAWC) vocational centre in Kabul. The Afghan women are attempting against all odds to gain an elementary education within an environment of conflict, poverty and patriarchal authority. Currently in its second series, the project invites Afghan women to interact with imagery created by the Australian artists, using their recently acquired literacy skills. Although in the beginning it was not intentionally political art, its very act cannot be otherwise. The sharing of marks on paper is in itself a political act revealing a political intent: ‘Afghan women, be strong; we stand in solidarity with you’.
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