Unfolding Projects: Afghan and Australian Artist Book Collaborations

May 2010

Fourteen women artists from Australia have created artists’ books of images, and have proposed a creative collaboration to women in Afghanistan, asking them to engage with the images by placing text throughout each book.

The project is a response to the dire situation of many women in Afghanistan, particularly in relation to literacy. Women in Afghanistan have for years experienced extreme hardships not only due to war but specifically because of their gender. Many women are illiterate because they were and often still are, forbidden, restricted, or discouraged to go to school or complete their education.

Currently, with the assistance of SAWA – Australia (Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan), http://www.sawa-australia.org/, 53 books have been delivered to a vocational training centre in Kabul where women are gaining literacy skills for the first time in their lives. The 53 books comprise the concertinas pictured below and their multiples.

The intent of the artists participating in this project has been to mobilise a process of support and dialogue with Afghani women, that at the same time conveys, “You/we are not alone.” The books can become a conversation – a conversation between women who are in different places, in different circumstances, but who wish to share a voice.

We now await the responses from Afghanistan.

November 2010

Just over six months from their delivery to Afghanistan, 36 of the 53 books have returned by airmail to Australia.

They will be exhibited at the IMPACT7 International Multi-disciplinary Printmaking Conference in Melbourne on 27 – 30 September, 2011.