Kabul Matters: no bombs but art in Afghanistan

16 Nov 2006 Category: Architecture, Conscientious Design, Events & Exhibitions, Features, Top Page 10

Kabul Matters: no bombs but art in Afghanistan

Puerto Rican Luis Berrios Negron on his way to stage an architectural performance in Afghanistan. Photo by Massoud Hosseini.

For all you couch potatoes, this one really sounds adventurous: Luis Berrios Negron, after recently finishing his studies in architecture at the MIT, went to Kabul to do a workshop with art students in Afghanistan. The Puerto Rican ended up doing an architectural performance involving the remains of a huge swimming pool from the Russian occupation and a gigantic green cloth. All on top of a hill right in the center of the city. And he did that where? Yes, in Afghanistan – the place you usually only hear of when it’s in the sad news about bombing attacks and international military presence. What you probably also didn’t know is that Kabul hosts a young and emerging art scene led by Rahraw Omarzad. He founded the Center for Contemporary Art Afghanistan (CCAA) in 2005 that specialises in video performances.

Written by Verena

Kabul – overlooking an environment perforated with shell holes. Photo by Massoud Hosseini.

Currently residing in Berlin Luis Berrios Negron was happy to talk about how he came to Kabul in the first place.

Decaying cityscape: this used to be a theater. Photo by Luis.

Luis, I just flipped through your online photo journal Kabul Matters. Wow, this must have been quite an intense experience! Ute Meta Bauer, curator and teacher at the MIT encouraged you to do this adventurous trip to Afghanistan and thanks to the Aga Kahn Program for Islamic Culture, the Center for Contemporary Art Afghanistan in Kabul finally invited you over to conduct a workshop with students for about a month. Well, Afghanistan sounds a bit risky to me. Weren’t you afraid at all?

Luis: It was my first time there. And yes, especially the first night was pretty intense. They fired two mortars on buildings three doors from where I was staying. Furthermore, I went only two weeks after the Danish caricature incident, so things weren’t really ideal. I had no idea what I was getting into. Also in addition to all that I was completely on my own in the first hour after my arrival and that got a bit scary, but for the rest of the month the people at CCAA cared for me greatly.

This vast swimming pool right in the city center was built by Russians. Strangely it never got into use…

…until now with Luis staging this architectural performance to give the whole place a new meaning. Photos by Massoud Hosseini.

Now I’m really curious to hear about your architectural performance. What exactly did you do there?

Luis: When I walked through the city I saw this pool, which was build by Russians during their occupation. They also set up a huge billboard next to it to express their propaganda. But miraculously the pool never worked. The Russian occupation did not work well, either, so then came the Taliban. These people performed not only the public executions and stoning in the stadium, but also conducted the clandestine executions for the politicians or professors right in this empty swimming pool. As it is on the top of a hill right in the center of the city, you can see this billboard from all over Kabul. It’s like the Hollywood sign. The bizarre thing is, that the whole city is literally littered with billboards – but this one has been abandoned for years.

I thought we could use the pool not only as a performance space but somehow dive in and create a new volume metaphorically: transform the meaning of what the pool stands for through a performance. Like some sort of emotional therapeutic washing in the pool, since this place is so loaded with the most awful expressions of humanity. I thought the students could try to change their meaning of themselves and re-define what their role in this city is.

A group of art students carrying the cloth up the hill. Photo by Massoud Hosseini.

Jumping down the deep and empty pool. Each of them got his stone for the further attachment of the cloth. Photo by Massoud Hosseini.

So you went up to the pool with the art students carrying this gigantic green cloth. You then unfolded it, attached rocks on it and covered the billboard with the cloth by throwing the stones over the billboard. I guess the people must have been pretty surprised by your actions…

The next step: unfolding the cloth all over the place. Photo by Massoud Hosseini.

Everybody stands amazed when finally the sun comes out leaving the site in one whole glistening experience. Photo by Massoud Hosseini.

Then the students throw stones attached with the cloth over the gigantic billboard to cover it up completely. Photos by Massoud Hosseini.

Luis: Well, in the beginning they thought: Who is this crazy guy? But then there was a moment when the sun came out and the cloth turned into this beautiful glowing surface. Everybody got really excited. From that moment on they began to understand what the performance was intended for. Then they began to pick up stones from the pool. Now you should know that these stones were used to kill women. So we transformed these stones to a tool to install the cloth on the billboard. That’s why we were throwing the stones over it.

nothing but stones, but here in Afghanistan these stones have a lot of history and meaning attached to them… Photo by Massoud Hosseini.

Why a green cloth? Has this colour a symbolic meaning for the Islamic faith?

Luis: In Puerto Rico green is the colour of hope whereas in Afghanistan specifically it’s the colour of rebirth. This huge piece of cloth with no text, no propaganda, and no symbols on it was an offering, a simple expression of hope. There were so many billboards covering the city: advertising cars, clothes, etc. And yet the people can barely afford to eat. I found it profoundly shameful that companies find the nerve to put up advertisement in the first place.

hoisting the cloth to cover the entire billboard. Photo by Massoud Hosseini.

Luis: Instead of advertisement or commerce, we used this gigantic billboard for the sake of art.

From every place in Kabul you can spot the green billboard now. Photo by Massoud Hosseini.

This is kind of blunt, but I have to ask: why did you choose to bring art to Kabul of all places?

Luis: Before I arrived I wanted to go there to learn from the people and not do an art project. As a Puerto Rican I have an American passport and feel responsible for what Americans do. I thought I could make some kind of contribution and wanted to learn first hand why and how it is that we are not communicating at all. Now it reveals to me that it’s a myth, this appearance of incongruence of cultures is absolute nonsense to me and sadly driven by the media.

Luis explaining his performance to the art students. Photo by Massoud Hosseini.

To what extent matches life in Kabul to anything we watch on TVs in the west?

Luis: Of course the media only portraits the moments of violence. Despite this huge international presence there is nobody involved with the community. They don’t go out because of the fear of security matters. So I found myself walking through the streets of Kabul with the students and I would only sometimes see a military convoy driving through rapidly.

A city crowded with abandoned tanks and other destroyed military paraphernalia. Photo by Luis.

I would like to know more about the cultural diversity in Afghanistan. Can you tell me something about that?

Luis: There are 17 languages in Afghanistan. Two of them, Dari and Pashto, are mostly spoken. Within the Muslim religion it is very fragmented, looking at the many ways the Koran is interpreted. It’s still a very tribal environment. And although the country is supposed to be a farming state, one main problem is the harvesting of opium. I mean, it is harvested like any other product, for example coffee. But the peasants have to deal with terrible people.

Next to the scantily patched houses there are some chic new places – but who can afford them? Photo by Luis.

So overall you tried to invoke a certain “mood” with your performance. In one of your earlier projects you showed how one could do this with a certain kind of architecture, too. I’m referring to the tsunami-safe(r) house where you were part of a team that developed safe houses for tsunami victims. The specific structure of these houses is high-tech design, whereas the building is made out of low-tech materials to keep the costs low…

The tsunami-safe(r) house: A construction to bring back hope as well as a roof top for disaster-ridden people.

Luis: Exactly. The tsunami-safe(r) house was a collaboration of the SENSEable City laboratory at MIT and the Harvard Group. These houses are getting build as we speak by the Prajnopaya Foundation in Sri Lanka. The point of the safe(r) house was a more emotional prop. Of course if a tsunami comes and you’re inside the house you will probably die as well, but at least you have a higher chance of keeping your property. Especially when you have a government that wants to remove all the people that live near the ocean and force them to move five miles inland… Therefore this designed house was a kind of an urban statement trying to provide a solution for the people to stay.

It was really inspiring to talk to you, Luis. Combining art with architecture and finding thech savvy solutions at hand, while being conscious about the problems faced by developing countries earns my deep respect. Thank you so much!

73 Comments

  1. one word. wow.

    Posted by: Cyberpukish on November 17th, 2006 at 12:29 am

  2. great work folks

    Posted by: 100kr on November 17th, 2006 at 3:43 am

  3. three words: wow wOW WOW!

    Posted by: munchy on November 17th, 2006 at 10:10 am

  4. He’s pretty amazing.

    Posted by: Joan on November 17th, 2006 at 1:54 pm

  5. Pretty amazing wOw WoW wOW WOW~
    (i guess there are great place for art create in kabul, you can paint wall, paint stree, and paint the people’s hope)

    Posted by: x-noise on November 17th, 2006 at 2:00 pm

  6. Admire and respect!

    Posted by: keanu zhang on November 17th, 2006 at 2:56 pm

  7. Powerful. Great article.

    And how do you have correspondence in Afghanistan?

    Posted by: Alexander on November 18th, 2006 at 7:34 am

  8. aspiring - indeed pronouncing hope and rebirth.

    Posted by: Alia Farid on November 20th, 2006 at 4:28 am

  9. [...] Sorprende scoprire che in quelle terre stanno rinascendo i movimenti artistici, compreso un centro per l’arte contemporanea: da Pingmag vorrei segnalarvi un articolo interessante con bellissime foto a corredo. [...]

    Posted by: Arte e architettura a Kabul at disordine .com on November 20th, 2006 at 6:47 am

  10. wow. very nice article. thank you!

    Posted by: Shahab on November 21st, 2006 at 6:51 am

  11. [...] PingMag - Kabul Matters: no bombs but art in Afghanistan Kabul Matters: no bombs but art in Afghanistan [...]

    Posted by: BlogMyth|博客神话之设计类博客 » Archive » Links for 2006-11-21 [del.icio.us] on November 24th, 2006 at 12:29 am

  12. GOOD JOB. BUEN TRABAJO! VIVA PUERTO RICO LIBRE. LONG LIIVE PUERTO RICO´S FREEDOM!!!!!!!!

    Posted by: NECHO on December 2nd, 2006 at 12:26 am

  13. Everything matters everywhere. That is the aesthetic Luis brought to life.

    Posted by: Ken Raboy on December 7th, 2006 at 11:38 am

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    Posted by: Mebb Notes » Blog Archive » Schrift on December 17th, 2006 at 7:20 am

  15. luiz … u are a freak of the greatest sort!!

    Posted by: sasha perera on January 26th, 2007 at 5:42 am

  16. There is always a bit of good in everything that is bad. What an inspiring article!!

    Posted by: Amish on April 2nd, 2007 at 9:40 pm

  17. Check out Luis’ exhibition in Berlin…!
    http://www.programonline.de/nonspheres.html

    Posted by: PROGRAM on July 12th, 2007 at 3:48 am

  18. [...] on the article about the contemporary Afghani art scene I was overwhelmed by an article about the true bleak struggle for freedom of speech. With little [...]

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  19. [...] charged offsite locations - the former NSA listening-post at Teufelsberg, Berlin and a performance in Kabul, [...]

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  20. awesome

    Posted by: angellesmell on January 6th, 2008 at 4:10 am

  21. what’s a chinese bookie doing in the middle east?
    great to see you, brother.
    hope to see you soon.

    Posted by: bprichard on May 7th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

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