TAHERA

Urban Nation Museum, 2019 (project “Exile”)

Technique: Acrylic and print on paper

Size: 120cm x 180cm

Paper: Hahnemühle Photo Rag®

Tahera comes from Herat, the second largest city in Afghanistan and she is a film and stage actress. When she was 13 years old, her sister wanted to set up a theatre company. Being women, they had a lot of trouble to be accepted as artists and finally decided to start a family company together. For seven years they performed in Afghanistan, in Kabul and Herat. Their pieces were political and displayed the situation and the atmosphere in the country. Tahera was always afraid that one day, their initiative would backfire.

And it eventually did as two women of their group were killed and a young one was kidnapped … for making art, an undeniable right here in Germany, while in Afghanistan, religious fundamentalists or the government saw them as heretics or dissidents. The first time Tahera went into exile was at the age of 20, in her own country as she was sent to the capital city of Kabul by her parents. Unfortunately, it was only a stopover before ending up in Berlin. She could not refrain to perform again and did so in Europe with two of her sisters. So far away from Afghanistan and the rest of her family, a phone call sealed the situation. A phone call from a father to his daughter, begging her not to come back as she was searched by the police …  

Tahera now lives in Berlin. Despite what happened to her, she does not want Afghanistan to just be associated with terror. She also want it to be known as her “home”, a home where art has its place, a home where people live.