WHEN the Taliban captured Kabul, they tried to burn the wooden box camera belonging to Fardin Waezi’s father. They burned the studio, but Waezi (pictured) saved the camera.
Now, Waezi, a world-renowned photojournalist with the United Nations, is in Williamstown after being granted a one-year visa coinciding with his Melbourne exhibition.
The exhibition, fresh from the British Museum in London, features 55 pictures shot in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2012.
“These pictures are reflecting fully the things in Afghanistan: the life of the people, the history of Afghanistan, the landscape, the children, the woman that’s going to school. Everything positive you can see in the exhibition,” Waezi said.
“Every day I am in the exhibition answering the questions of the people and giving more detail about why I took this picture and what has happened now in Afghanistan and how the people are feeling. As an Afghan photographer, it was my job and it was Afghanistan’s job to show fully these things to the other world, and it was my dream when I was studying for photojournalism and some of my teachers asked me, ‘why do you want to be a photojournalist’ and I told them I want to show the beauty of my country, the reality, the culture, the history, the landscape, to the world.
“And now I am doing this to show the world.
“We pray for peace. Peace, inshallah, will come one day to Afghanistan.”
■ Afghanistan: Beyond the Ancient Silk Road is showing at the Atrium Gallery in Federation Square until Sunday.
—Goya Dmytryshchak
