Fotomuseum Winterthur | Wednesday, 01.09. – Sunday, 07.11.1999

Fazal Sheikh. Afghanistan – The Victor Weeps

Fazal Sheikh, born in New York in 1965, travelled through the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan – the area where his grandfather Sheikh Fazal Ilahi, came from. Afghanistan was in a state of war: first the struggle of the Mujahedin against the Soviet invaders, and then, after 1989, a civil war, from which the Taliban, and with them the Islamic fundamentalism, emerged victorious.

During this long period of war, streams of refugees were constantly moving across the border into Pakistan. Fazal Sheikh visited these refugees, spending time with them. Slowly, they entrusted him with their histories and confided in him their tortured dreams. Out of these meetings have arisen unusually intensive portraits of the men huddled around a gas lamp, veiled women and children peering with the dread into an uncertain future.

Following his project on refugees in Kenya, published in the book A Sense of Common Ground, this is his second extensive work on the subject of people and human rights during wars.

The exhibition was curated by Urs Stahel.

Main sponsor: Winterthur Versicherungen