Article
Teach with Collections: Fazal Sheikh, Rohullah, Afghan refugee village, Badabare, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan
Long concerned with documenting people living in displaced and dispossessed communities, the artist Fazal Sheikh, Princeton Class of 1987, selected this photograph, among others, for exhibition in response to President Donald Trump's Executive Order 13769 of January 27, 2017. The order blocked entry into the United States for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries‚—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen; indefinitely barred refugees from Syria; and suspended all other refugee admissions for 120 days. This photograph exemplifies Sheikh's continuing efforts to amplify the stories of marginalized people through images and texts. The conjunction of Rohullah's photograph and the accompanying text below offer a compelling voice for Sheikh's humanitarian project.
"In 1981 my cousin, Qari Monir, was taken along with thirteen other elders and mullahs by communist troops into the desert. For six months the villagers did not know what happened to them. Then one day a shepherd minding his animals in the desert area surrounding the village saw a piece of white cloth under the earth. He pulled at it and finally he realized that it was a long scarf. As he continued to dig he saw that there was a man buried there. . . Eventually, the fourteen bodies of our leaders were recovered. Their hands and feet had been tied and they had been buried alive. . . These were spiritual people and they were awaiting a proper and respectful burial. It was this incident which convinced us that the communists were willing to kill us all, not just those who were fighters. And so we decided to leave the village and take our families to the safety of Pakistan. In the months that followed, the men returned to Afghanistan to free our country from the invaders."
Conversation prompts
Describe the cropping effects, angle of vision, and focal points of the composition. How do these elements inform your interaction with the figure?
What type of relationship would you imagine between the artist and the sitter based on the style of this photograph?
Does this figure appear to be a marginalized figure in society? Why or why not?
"In 1981 my cousin, Qari Monir, was taken along with thirteen other elders and mullahs by communist troops into the desert. For six months the villagers did not know what happened to them. Then one day a shepherd minding his animals in the desert area surrounding the village saw a piece of white cloth under the earth. He pulled at it and finally he realized that it was a long scarf. As he continued to dig he saw that there was a man buried there. . . Eventually, the fourteen bodies of our leaders were recovered. Their hands and feet had been tied and they had been buried alive. . . These were spiritual people and they were awaiting a proper and respectful burial. It was this incident which convinced us that the communists were willing to kill us all, not just those who were fighters. And so we decided to leave the village and take our families to the safety of Pakistan. In the months that followed, the men returned to Afghanistan to free our country from the invaders."
Conversation prompts
Describe the cropping effects, angle of vision, and focal points of the composition. How do these elements inform your interaction with the figure?
What type of relationship would you imagine between the artist and the sitter based on the style of this photograph?
Does this figure appear to be a marginalized figure in society? Why or why not?
