The year 2014 has seen many books about Afghanistan, mainly historical and retrospective, putting the war in perspective. The one just published by photographer Lorenzo Tugnoli and writer Francesca Recchia is of another kind, anchored in both the present and the future, at a time when the country seems to have found a new leader. This intimate portrait of the country’s capital, Kabul, through its cultural scene is a poetic account of art as a vehicle for democracy. We’re dropped into Kabul as if into an unknown city, and we leave with our heads filled with all the encounter we’ve had. “The Little Book of Kabul was conceived as a work that slowly reveals itself and what it is about. We wanted to leave not knowing the end of the story,” write Tugnoli.
And in fact, we enter informally in a recording studio with a thousand details: microphones, soft lighting, leather jackets, concentrated musicians, lyrics. We can hear the rock arrangements of Kabul Dreams in the words of Francesca Recchia. They vibrate with the same intense notes as the city, that the author translated into letters in a chapter entitled “Counterpoint at a Construction Site” , written as an opera score that introduces each tool as an instrument spreading a singular melody: a wheelbarrow, a shovel, a saw, a hammer, a second hammer, the radio station of the site, banging sandals, each is superimposed to compose the strident symphony of a vibrant city where resilience resonates with freedom of expression. “Afghanistan is a country full of injustices, said Nasir. There is not much we can do. They can take your body. They can kill you. But they can not take your soul or your ideas. They can not kill a cloud. “ Nasir has joined the CCAA (the Centre for Contemporary Art Afghanistan), founded by Ustad Omarzad, who appears in the book several times.
The photographs convey the same lyrism, with their dense black and white grain, their released movement, their rejection of exoticism and the striking expression of subjects. Each photograph exudes a touching optimism, like the portrait of Arifa posing for a fellow student at CCAA. Her face bathed in sunshine, surrounded by the sculptural folds of the burqa she lifted above her forehead, she closes her eyes and lips with a discreet smile, accentuated by an irrepressible dimple. There is a white canvas in the background – a blank canvas on which will blend the lines of history in the making.
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