Pictures show at St. Anthony Hall exhibits lives of Afghan ladies

Kaiya Sharp, Contributing Photographer

With traditional Afghan music tinkling in the background, attendees at St. Anthony Hall viewed vibrant portraits of Afghan women Friday evening.

Dozens of students and Yale affiliates gathered to observe the art of Fatimah Hossaini, an award-winning Iran-born artist who photographs Afghan women in traditional clothing. Hossaini was asked to come to Yale by the Afghanistan Student Association, who collaborated with St. Anthony’s to host the event. 

“Amidst all the war and conflict and all those dark images of Afghanistan that you always hear, there’s a hidden beauty and resilience in feminine life,” Hossaini, who is of Afghan heritage, said in a speech to the gathered crowd.

The collection, called “Beauty Amidst War,” illustrated the diverse cultures of women in Afghanistan, according to the poster for the event. Hossaini photographed women from a variety of ethnic groups as the center of Afghan life, in bustling marketplaces and in quiet shops. 

“For too long Afghan stories have been told by outsiders and people who don’t really know the culture,” Zakira Bakhshi ’26, president of the Yale Afghanistan Student Association and organizer of the event, said. Bakhshi invited Hossaini to present her work at Yale following a previous encounter, she said.

“I was invited to one of her exhibitions in Paris, and I saw how she was reflecting the stories of women and how she reflected the stories of Afghans through her art,” Bakhshi said.

The women photographed hold traditional objects and instruments and are clothed in rich Afghan fabrics and styles, with expressions ranging from peaceful to enraged.

Hossaini emphasized the “strength and resilience” of the women in the poster describing her exhibit. Hossaini was forced to leave Afghanistan when the Taliban took over in 2021, which left her photo collection unfinished.

Even before that, women were discouraged and disallowed from being viewed publicly, Hossaini said. The rebellion present in the photos is no accident — Hossaini said it was a deliberate effort to highlight a suppressed truth, calling attention to how the terrorist force in Afghanistan “targets” women. 

“So many times I got a call from a brother, husband, father, that ‘how we dare to take the picture of these women,’” Hossaini said. Because of this, she often photographed “artists, dancers, women who were in the cinema that gave me permission to publish their pictures.” 

“This is a reprieve from a lot of the more violent narratives,” Fiona Bultonsheen JGA ’26, a student at the Jackson School of Global Affairs said. Bultonsheen emphasized the window into normalcy that Hossaini’s art provided.

Wei Xing, a World Fellow at the Jackson School, was drawn into the exhibit by the beauty of the subjects, he said. He noted that it is rare to see Afghan women in their “normal lives.”

Hossaini emphasized the empowerment she hoped to give women through her art, saying that she wanted to portray Afghan women outside of the “oriental victim frame” they are often confined to.

In a call to the audience and the world, Hossaini proclaimed, “women of the world and women of Afghanistan stand tall.”

Hossaini is an artist-in-residence at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and the New York Safe Haven Residency Program, according to the poster that advertised her exhibition.