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Lida Abdul is a video artist and performance artist from Afghanistan. She was born as Lida Abdullah[1] in Kabul in 1973, fled the country as a child during the Soviet Invasion and went on to live in Germany then the United States.

Her most recent work has been featured at the 2005 Venice Biennale, Kunsthalle Vienna, Museum of Modern Art Arnhem Netherlands and Miami Cantral, CAC Centre d'art contemporain de Brétigny and Frac Lorraine Metz, France. She has also exhibited in festivals in Mexico, Spain, Germany, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Afghanistan.

Abdul completed a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1997 and a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy in 1998, both from California State University. She also completed a Master of Fine Arts in the University of California in 2000. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles and Kabul.

Early Life

Abdul fled Afghanistan in December 1979 with the threat of the Soviet Invasion, making her a refugee to India, Germany and the United States, and thus is an “artistic nomad". The Russian-Afghan conflict’s history goes back to 1838. Autocratic Russia (and later the USSR) had expansionist goals, continually competing with Great Britain for Central Asian territory. Historically, Afghanistan’s goals have been independence, maintenance of territory and the security of the throne. This contrasted with two great powers, Russia and Great Britain, competing for power in the Middle East. The Soviet Union and Afghanistan were “natural allies” during the Second World War. The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan is considered the leading event of the Cold War. Soviet presence in Afghanistan was felt strongly in infrastructure. Afghan cities, notoriously difficult to travel between, were connected with a major road system with Soviet aid.

Career and Work

Abdul’s video and performance art is described as abstract and dream-like, and she uses film techniques such as blurring to evoke the mind, as well as an “epic scale".  Her films are politically charged, and use themes of hope and renewal to suggest her war-torn home country’s future of progress. While Abdul was made a refugee in 1979 after the Soviet Invasion,  she was able to return to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban to revisit her home country, film, and meet with Afghan people to talk about their hopes for the future. She creates political commentary, films that speak to themes of devastation, displacement culture, identity and bodies.

Two films from 2005, White House and Dome are rich with political content. White House is one of Abdul’s better-known works, which was shown at the Venice Biennale. The film depicts the rubble of a classical building in a landscape set outside of Kabul. The artist films herself dressed in black, painting the rubble white. A man enters the scene, and Abdul paints his back in a similar fashion. Finally, the short, five-minute film ends with a herd of goats exploring the ruins. The film is rhythmic, and a symbol of hope and progress, as well as an act of political resistance to various injustices, such as the United States’ profitable occupation of Afghanistan, the whitewashing of history, and Afghan people’s psychological injury from living in a war-torn region.

Dome holds an optimistic tone contrasted with symbols of distress. It depicts a boy spinning joyfully in a crumbling mosque while an American helicopter passes overhead. The spinning and dizziness are meant to represent displacement due to war.

Exhibitions and Shows

Lida Abdul’s work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the Middle East, Europe and North America.

Solo Exhibitions:

National Museum of Afghanistan (Kabul, Afghanistan 2007)

Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (Indianapolis, USA 2008)

Krannert Art Museum (Champaign, Illinois, USA 2010)

Centro de Arte Contemporáneo (Málaga, Spain 2013)

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon, Portugal, 2013)

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Paris, France, 2014)

Group Exhibitions:

Global Feminisms (Brooklyn Museum, NYC, USA 2007)

History of Violence (Haifa Museum of Art, Israel 2009)

Beyond Memory (Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem, Israel 2011)

Transition Project (Yapi Kredi Kültür Merkezi, Istanbul, Turkey 2013)

Other Shows:

Venice Biennale (2005 and 2015)

Moscow Biennial (2007)

Documenta (Kassel, Germany 2012)

Awards

Lida Abdul’s work has received several awards, including the Taiwan Award at the Venice Biennale in 2005, the Prince Claus Award in Amsterdam in 2006, the UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Arts from the United Arab Emirates in 2007, and the EMAF Award in Osnabrueck, Germany in 2009.

Themes

Abdul’s art also addresses the common issue of the depiction of Afghan people in the mass western media. It is common in western media to only report on Afghanistan in contexts of terror and war, and public western knowledge does not expand much beyond that image. Through her art, Abdul hopes Western people will learn more about Afghan people and cultures.

Afghanistan, though a centrally governed country, is not unified in culture, national identity or language, though the lingua franca is Dari. Few people living in Afghanistan would describe themselves as “Afghan”, but rather of a specific tribe living in the region and surrounding areas. Major groups include Pushtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Baluch (link “Baloch people”), each distinct and without strong feelings of national borders or identity, who spill into neighboring countries without regard for borders. Some attributes unite most “Afghans”, however, with a 90% majority Sunni Muslim population. One of Abdul’s goals in her films is to educate a western audience about the nature of these cultures, and how they may diverge from the assumptions that people make about Afghanistan and Afghan people due to stereotypes they may encounter in the popular media. She recognizes the tendency of western media to paint a stereotypical image of Afghanistan, and through her art, she hopes to humanize people who are often demonized. One such stereotype is an image of a nation overtaken by war and stripped entirely of culture, however, even in light of devastation, Afghan people still had the desire to create art. With the works of Lida Abdul and other artists in the forefront, a western audience is given an alternative way to see Afghanistan removed from the depictions of terror and devastated cities. Afghanistan is more regional than central in orientation and culture, in part because of the lack of transportation throughout the country to connect major points of interest. However, a road system connecting the three major cities was built with Soviet aid.

Links

California State University, Fullerton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_University,_Fullerton

University of California, Irvine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Irvine

Taliban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban

The Taliban’s Wikipedia page is an important link for this particular article because it outlines the militant group’s censorship of the arts and other things of cultural significance.

Kabul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabul

Kabul’s article discusses the city’s history, including that of the Soviet Invasion and the Taliban, both significant for Abdul’s artistic works.

Mosque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque

World War II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II

As one can imagine, the Wikipedia page for World War II is very in-depth, and provides the reader with an excellent overview of the war. This is significant for readers of Abdul’s Wikipedia page to understand the background of the Soviet-Afghan conflict and how the Soviet Union acted as a major player in the Second World War.

Dari (language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dari_language

While the article on Abdul will not get into the specifics of this major language spoken in Afghanistan, the language’s specific Wikipedia page outlines the percentage of the population who speaks it, the other official language in Afghanistan, and similar languages and dialects.

Pushtuns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtuns

This article points out the prevalence of this population within Afghanistan and a brief description of the history and geographic distribution of the ethnic group. This gives readers of Abdul’s article an idea of the way ethnic groups are distributed territorially throughout the Middle East, not always following national boundaries.

Tajiks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajiks

Similarly, this article shows the distribution of the Tajik people in Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. This shows readers that despite the existence of nations with borders like Tajikstan and Uzbekistan, the people living in these regions have more tribal than national identity, and pay little attention to state boundaries when migrating.

Baloch people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baloch_people

As of 2008 the Baloch people were subdivided into over 130 tribes, informing the reader about how regional these populations can be.

Uzbeks

The reader sees a distinction between the Uzbeks as an ethnic group and the citizens of Uzbekistan as two separate topics. This is significant in communicating to the reader the importance of this idea of the difference between national and ethnic identities.

Sunni Islam

It is important for the reader to know the religion practiced by 90% of the population of Afghanistan.

Muslim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim

Stereotype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype

While almost all readers will be familiar with the concept of a stereotype, it may be helpful to understand the nuances of the issue, as well as the social psychological research behind the notion.

National Museum of Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Afghanistan

Krannert Art Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krannert_Art_Museum

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calouste_Gulbenkian_Foundation

This is an introduction to the foundation, which featured Abdul in a group exhibition. It gives the reader an understanding of the foci of the public foundation, including support of the arts and education.

Brooklyn Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Museum

Museum on the Seam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_on_the_Seam

Venice Biennale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice_Biennale

Abdul’s work was on display at the Venice Biennale in 2005 and 2015. The Wikipedia page informs the public of the frequency of each faction of the arts organization’s reoccurrence, helpful to readers of Abdul’s page in case they misunderstand, thinking the show only runs every ten years, when in fact, it runs annually.

Prince Claus Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Claus_Fund

Abdul is featured on this article under the subheading “The 2006 Prince Claus Awards”.

UNESCO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO