The summer of 2019 was the deadliest to date in Afghanistan. Civilian casualties mounted as the Taliban and Islamic State affiliates orchestrated thousands of attacks between June and August, targeting noncombatant men, women and children indiscriminately.
It also happened to be the summer that photographer Elena Gallina, a master’s candidate and a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, booked a flight to Kabul. Her mission: to disassemble prior conceptions of women in war zones by asking them, face to face, about the role beauty plays in their lives.
It’s a universal question that all women will confront at some point in time. Is beauty physical or ephemeral? Is it a source of power or a means of exploitation? How can we (and should we even strive to) be beautiful in a society that later objectifies what it first praises? The perplexity spans language, culture and border, unrelenting even in the face of armed conflict.
A conflict that you might think would scare away Westerners, or anyone fortunate enough to live in a place where safety can be taken for granted. But after growing up in post-war Kosovo as the daughter of aid workers, Elena isn’t fazed by the daily risks that conflict presents, nor is she a stranger to the scars that discrimination and violence can imprint upon a people and a place. Despite the hazards, she set out to photograph and speak to Afghan women who, after decades of tokenization and an all-too-frequent portrayal as victims or gendered slaves, deserve a chance to set the record straight.
“You know how any crazy idea starts…I thought this would be a chance to continue in the same vein of research I’ve been doing, which is the role of women in war zones,” she tells me. “And I wanted to figure out how to do that in a creative way.”
The result of her “crazy idea” and a busy week spent between Kabul and Herat is a display of 28 unstaged portraits of Afghan women, arranged alongside thoughts and statements from each woman’s conversation with Elena over tea. Entitled “The New Woman,” the exhibition is a powerful confrontation of the duality of beauty, and argues for a more nuanced understanding of the nature of gender insecurity, particularly in places of conflict.
“Yes, they are on the frontlines. But they are neither victims nor heroes, they are simply women like all the rest, crying out to create a new kingdom,” Elena says of the exhibition’s subjects. The truth about women in war zones is perhaps more complicated than the language of “victim” and “hero” allows us to articulate. For this reason, Elena hopes the portraits – the faces of the women themselves – will speak louder and more eloquently than words, and that visibility will serve to elevate their lived experiences.
Brand of People Magazine presents: a conversation with Elena Gallina.
How did your personal experience growing up in Kosovo in the wake of a genocide affect your sense of purpose in the world?
It certainly affected things. Much of my work is motivated by the strength and resilience of the women I grew up around. Being raised in a post-war country, you see daily what it takes just to wake up and feed your family and go through the motions, and those are the unsung heroes of feminism – the ones who keep going.
“The New Woman” examines the duality of beauty for women in Afghanistan. What preconceptions did the women you spoke with most want to address?
I went into the whole project with just my passion and curiosity, so each of the interviews was long-form in nature and very discussion-based. The conversations all meandered. Beauty was one of the themes, and that’s the direction the exhibition took.
Another theme was teasing out Western feminism: how it has erred, how Afghan women want to counter some of the narratives around what it means to be a woman within Afghanistan. Among the misconceptions that they wanted to address, most commonly, was that they’re not heroes, they’re not victims, they’re really not any different than you and I. Their circumstances are different and the things that they have to battle on a daily basis look different than what you and I might have to battle in whatever country we find ourselves. But the otherization is the thing that was most mentioned.
There was a lot of “don’t forget about us.” I was there in the middle of the peace negotiations, the upcoming elections, a really tough summer as the world was watching and a lot of women felt as though the U.S. negotiations with the Taliban were forgetting the plight of women.
That they were cut out of the whole conversation.
Yes. That was a heavy theme.
Many articles coming out of the region in recent years have had this theme of women rising up again in Afghanistan. They were opening art galleries and stepping into more visible leadership roles. There was very much this feeling that things were finally changing. And then in light of the negotiations with the Taliban – whose ideology threatens basic individual liberties – that optimism disappeared. I have to believe that was really disillusioning for a lot of women.
Yeah, at the time, there was a very pervasive feeling of anxiety and apprehension around what comes next. A sense of, “We’ve been at the forefront of battling this and we’ve made progress and we’ve self-actualized in so many areas and to suddenly have our voices not incorporated at the bargaining table feels like such a dismissive wave of the hand, as though we don’t matter.”
And we’ve seen that in many countries and in so many instances throughout history. Women at the backbone of the movement. Women who are the ones rallying, the ones cooking food, the ones supporting whatever it is, in any type of revolutionary setting. And then when the moment comes to dream up a new future, their efforts are largely forgotten.
Absolutely. That’s another thing that is so beautiful about this photography exhibition – it gives them a very literal visibility. In the most immediate sense. And I’m curious, too, about how you found the women you photographed.
Yes, visibility is definitely the whole point because one of the strongest ways to counter the narrative of exploitation is to celebrate women just for who they are. It was a bold creative move; they’re very unstaged portraits. So there was some pushback as I was pitching to galleries and some people didn’t like that, and some people loved it.
There’s no homogenous background because I let each woman position herself in her own context. I was driving all over the city; they weren’t coming to me. I was interviewing them in their own homes, in their schools, in their offices, letting them go where they wanted to be photographed. And the pictures were taken at the end of an hour-long conversation over tea. In the full exhibition of 28 photos that are supposed to be up in a gallery – and they will be eventually – in each of the images, they’re so expressive. And there was so much laughter and, I’d like to think, trust that was built over the course of conversation and tea, which is the point of us interacting with other people.
As to how I found people…[laughs]… that is always a fun game. I got out a spreadsheet and just started emailing and calling and WhatsApping. I gave myself a month to see if I could get a visa and enough traction. I thought, if at the end of the month neither of those have come through, I’ll abandon it and say I gave it my best effort. Or it’ll be happening. In the end, I had 75 names and couldn’t interview them all. Their openness was amazing, and the trust during the interviews. I was winging it as much as they were. We were laughing and chatting.
And you forged some real friendships, I’m sure.
Yeah. I was very intentional about choosing to talk to and photograph women from all walks of life. Often the international audience only hears from the “changemaker” women at the forefront, the ones that are running NGOs that are backed by the West. That was not my intention, so I talked to youth activists, I talked to women that I met randomly on the streets. One day I just walked around the university campus and [talked to] anyone who was willing to chat. Some high-powered political figures. Business women. Private sector, public sector, creatives.
Were these conversations happening in English?
Probably 50/50. I had the help of an interpreter, a young girl from the university.
That’s great. If you were restricted to only those who spoke fluent English, that right off the bat is going to determine what slice of the population you have access to.
And I was determined not to use a New York Times interpreter, but just a local, someone my own age. She and I were sort of a rag tag team. She was fantastic and also appeared in the exhibition.
So you spent an hour talking to them, and a big part of that conversation was the role that beauty plays in their lives. Were you talking about the physical or the personal, or beauty in a broader sense?
All of the above! For me, a lot of what motivated the exhibition is the philosophy behind the question: is beauty good or is it bad? What about beauty in the world at large? Beauty in nature? Does it motivate us to become kinder and more just? Or is it exploitative? I was asking the question at a really theoretical level, but also in a personal way, and this was a conversation about all of those things. It ranged from what aspects of the natural world women find motivating; if they themselves engage in something creative or artistic.
And then to the physical side: do you consider yourself beautiful? What does being beautiful mean to you? Do you think a beautiful woman is dangerous? Do you think it’s a form of power? Then afterwards, it was just a matter of mining the interviews and rereading and relistening to all of them until I was able to pull out a theme and create the exhibition. I didn’t go into the interviews with a distinct understanding of where the answers would lead me. They were very much organic, flowing conversations around beauty.
What common threads did you notice?
The definition of beauty…it’s better put in their words. And that was my vision for the exhibition; the images are followed up with their quotes. For most people beauty was very internally defined, and lot of it had to do with their sense of self confidence. And then most strikingly: beauty as determined by how much you connect with other women in your community.
The idea that came up so frequently was that the empowered woman is the woman who empowers those around her. She’s the woman who lends a helping hand. A lot of detailed imagery about women standing in a circle or women as a team or women linking arms. It felt very counter to the individualist narrative that we hear in the West. Which is sort of…you become the CEO. You have a big LinkedIn network. You’re a bad-ass individual woman out there on your own.
The empowered woman is the woman who empowers those around her. She’s the woman who lends a helping hand.
Did they talk much about beauty in the context of how men view it? Given that Afghan society is extremely patriarchal, I’m curious as to whether that influenced their views.
After covering the definition of personal beauty, we got into “what does physical beauty mean? Is it a strength or weakness?” And I think what was captured was the fact that it’s a no-win. They do prefer to be beautiful; Afghan women and Afghan culture care a lot about fashion and color and they have this magnificent, rich history of beauty. The poetry is beautiful. The art is beautiful. There’s a lot of pride taken among women in beauty and style. But then there’s also the exploitative nature of beauty and the risk that women are put at and…there were so many tough conversations about that side of things.
I [talked to] an older woman who very vehemently explained to me that in her view, beauty is a good thing. It’s a gift from God. But then men, with their distortion or exploitation or commodification of beauty, make it perverse and that weaponizes beauty.
Do you think that we in the more liberal West can really grasp the nuance of that?
Yes, actually, I think that’s one of the most interesting observations I’ve been able to make after having lived in a lot of different places with various cultures. Kosovo is a strongly Muslim country, not as much so as Afghanistan, but a very conservative place and it’s where I spent my childhood. I found my experiences moving to the West as a teenager to be overwhelming in the fact that [the West] is just as sexist and just as gendered. They’re just as oppressive here; it just looks different. The way industry pressures women into certain standards of beauty and the culture around fitness and fat shaming and dieting – and the list goes on – is its own form of exploitative messaging.
In some ways, the narrative that Western society feeds us is sneakier. It’s under the radar.
It’s sneakier, definitely. Even here [in the U.S.], we have this tendency – and I heard this from the Afghan women I chatted with as well: as soon as a woman is successful, the assumption is that she must have slept her way to the top or she got the position because she’s beautiful. These are themes I’ve encountered in my own professional development and my own academic growth.
Some things don’t change where humanity is concerned. Speaking of attire, did the burqa come up during these chats?
Many of them didn’t wear the head covering when it was just us in their homes during the interview. Before the photo they had to put it on. There is one woman who chose not to wear the head covering. But for the most part, it was a self-determined choice and it did come up in conversation. Many of them articulated that they look forward to the day when they will no longer have to wear the head covering for a portrait.
The West has a troubled understanding of the head covering. I’ve heard from so many Muslim women who want to wear it, who live in the West and say it’s my right, it’s my choice. And then you hear other voices that say, no, that’s a patriarchal system convincing women that they should want to wear it. Did they talk about that tension? Are they aware of the how the head covering often carries a connotation of submission in the West?
Absolutely. Rafia Zakaria is a phenomenal thinker and writer who wrote the book Veil, and I highly recommend it. She actually consulted on my project before I went; she helped me make some connections. Her book is only 150 pages and I think it really helps Western audiences understand a different perspective on the burqa.
As far as my interviewees: they want the choice. That’s what it comes down to. Whether you’re situated in France or in Afghanistan, it’s your body, it’s your life, and it should be your choice. Some of the women that I interviewed, no matter where they would be situated in the world, would still be choosing to wear a headscarf. And some of the women would choose not to if they were situated in another context. I definitely had a few women comment that they want the West to know that despite the head covering, they are strong and competent and smart. And they wanted to remove the stigma around the veil as an automatic symbol of oppression.
Let’s switch gears for a second. There’s a sense in which we all get used to the circumstances that surround us. And I’m hesitant but maybe I want to use the word “desensitized” because, you know, it’s a coping mechanism. How did you sense that these women are coping with the violence that surrounds them?
That’s a tough one. I don’t want to ever attempt to speak on behalf of the women who’ve trusted me with their stories, and I run the risk of doing just that in answering this question. I can ground it in personal experience, having lived in a country that was unstable and under U.N. occupation and an active war zone. You don’t get desensitized. In large part, there’s no way I could have done [the trip to Afghanistan] had I not grown up where I did, had I not lived in lots of protracted conflict environments. Because you stop hearing the helicopters, you stop seeing barbed wire, the guns sort of fade into the background. I hesitate to say that you forget or that it isn’t part of your daily life. “Desensitizing” is too strong a word.
That’s where beauty comes back into play; many women commented on the fact that what gives them hope and resilience is the sound of the birds in the morning or the color of the sunrise, or being able to catch beauty in a city that’s being overrun by suicide bombers and Taliban. I don’t think that’s a desensitization; it’s the choice to look beyond the hard things we encounter every day.
Absolutely. What’s so striking about that answer is that even though the sun rises and sets every day…how many sunsets have we seen in our lives? And yet every day that beauty still strikes them. That’s powerful.
Yes. It’s the most amazing thing. It’s what has kept me going through times where I’ve been in really shitty situations and environments.
What would you say the world can do right now to best help and support women in war zones?
One of my favorite answers to this question came from one of my interviewees. I was voicing to her my concern about the tokenization aspect and the way the West might say women in Afghanistan are weak. And she looked at me and she said, “I don’t really care what they think about me, as long as they keep sending money. If that’s what it takes, they can believe whatever they want, because my sense of self is not dependent on their impression of me. And we do need help. We actually are up against serious issues here.” I thought it was really empowering to say, your impression of me doesn’t alter my life. If you think I’m weak or I’m strong, I don’t really care because I know who I am.
Yes. And I will still put that money to good use!
Exactly, and that was her point. She said, “I am still going to build schools and do what I need to do for my community, regardless of what you think I am based on my head covering.”
When I asked what they would want to change or how they think women in the West could support that, the most common answer bar none was, “We want to be on a team.” Whatever that looks like for you, whether that means giving to an NGO, whether it means raising awareness, whether it means just being better educated. There were a lot of pleas to educate yourself, to read and understand the intricacies of life in these contexts. Don’t just take the news clips for what they present.
And then it circled back to the idea of sisterhood: hold my hand. Put a hand on my shoulder. Reach out and let me know you’re there and that we’re in this together in a sister bond.
Hold my hand. Put a hand on my shoulder. Reach out and let me know you’re there and that we’re in this together in a sister bond.
That’s incredibly powerful. Do you have a sense for what your next creative project might be?
Right now, I’m contemplating two directions. One is the ways in which isolation is a luxury and the politics of space and privilege. Right now there’s all this narrative around being isolated and staying home and continuing to be productive. For the first time, the world is really getting a taste of the politics of space and how we don’t all have options. Not everyone can go home and just transition their life to Zoom. A lot of people have to go to work or be in public spaces. Obviously that’s pervasive and everyone understands that in this moment. But what is the larger implication? Right now, someone sitting in a private mansion in Lithuania can understand the issues faced in the educational attainment of someone in a refugee camp. Being constantly surrounded by other people and unable to concentrate is the lived reality of much of the world. So this is one potentially interesting photography option.
The other one is the caring economy and home care. The essential workers that provide domestic care and how little they’re paid. I would love to figure out how to interview and represent those voices. They’re primarily women of color who are the backbone of the care economy here in the U.S. and are not part of our formalized health care system and don’t make a living wage. Now more than ever we’re realizing how important they are. What does it look like to tell their stories differently and combat the historical narrative around domestic care and help?
It is interesting to see how a global pandemic has really thrown all these issues into relief, issues that maybe some of us were vaguely aware of, but they’re in such focus right now that I think both of these would be very interesting to pursue as we start evaluating: what are we going to take away from this whole thing? Let’s not let it all have been for nothing.
Yeah. I mean, who wants a return to normal?
It wasn’t a normal that served everyone.
I’d like a different normal, a normal in which women, especially women of color, are given more room in every arena. Wouldn’t it be amazing how different the world would look?
All imagery courtesy of Elena Gallina.
Initially scheduled to debut at MING Studios in Boise, Idaho, and subsequently at The Jam Factory for the Photo Oxford Festival, “The New Woman” exhibition has been postponed until further notice due to Covid-19.
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