Maryam Ashrafi, of Iranian origin, studied sociology related to photography, and vice versa, at Newport University (GB). She has just published the book Rising among the ruins, dancing between the bullets after spending six years in various Kurdish territories, particularly on the border between Iraq and Iran, but especially in northern Syria. Her photographs bear witness of “living with” behind the front lines: her photography does not fall within the scope of photojournalism or that of art photography: it is documentary photography or, better said, author-photography.
While in her book Maryam Ahsrafi shows as many men as women, the exhibition at the Analix Forever gallery in Geneva, with a feminist orientation, has chosen to specifically show portraits of women, alone or in groups, the photographer offers a testimony on the way a people tries to build a future by emphasizing the role of women in today’s social balance and in the hope of a more open tomorrow. The emancipation of women here adjoins, supports and elevates beyond the ruins the activism of the Kurdish independence movement.
Maryam Ashrafi shows life on the margins of conflict, in territories in conflict, of the realities that imprison but also the freedom that emerges when women become the bearers of a revolutionary political and social project. The photographer knows the people she photographs. She mourns those who died in the years that separated the “shooting” from the publication of the book. The time spent with each woman, each group, often several weeks, guarantees the respect given to each person photographed: this long time allows, when the time comes, to capture their magic, without the images ever being “taken” – rather, they are “returned.” The creator does not allow herself the slightest digression, the slightest phantom gesture. To create here comes down to identifying something important that should be isolated, retained in a sort of pure state in the face of destruction.
The body there sides with life in the face of the lurking death. The principle retained by the artist is that of change, movement, light. Exceptional work by the way, on the light. The beauty of women speaks of life; eros, invisible and powerful, here takes on an almost sacred dimension. Eros versus Thanatos.
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret
