cart (Afghan dream
Here are the details of the book :
- Format : 28x22,5 cm
- 144 pages
- hard cover
- Deluxe demi mat paper
- Printed in France
- All texts in french and english
- 800 copies
What do you really know about Afghanistan ? Can we only get this single war-based frame about the country that all medias gave to us for the last 20 years ?
Afghan Dream has been a long-term project from 2007 to 2015. Sandra Calligaro, a young french photographer, has lived in Kaboul (Afghanistan) from 2007 to 2015. She is now releasing a book with personal pictures from this period. She gives here a very personnal point of view, far away from the pictures we've used to see about Afghanistan.
The book shows the evolution of Afghan society disrupted by 13 years of international presence. The book is half way between journalistic evidence thanks to Sandra Calligaro’s commitment in Afghanistan, and an original poetic digression explained by her very contempory photographic quest.
Sandra Calligaro’s photography unveils the everyday life of an emerging middle class, lacking guidelines and seeking ways to escape from reality. The author questions us on our knowledge of this region and she queries the subconcious image that people have developed through the prism of the medias which is often reduced to the sensational conflits in the area.
"But what stands out most from repeated visits to Kabul during the past decade is the emergence of a new westernized urban class. This class emerged thanks largely to the influx of money that came with the coalition's arrival in 2001. Far from the clichés of a turbaned Afghanistan, these new urban residents mingle in supermarkets in Kabul with their mobiles stuck to their ears." - From LensCulture about Sandra Calligaro's project.
Text by Gilles Dorronsoro, Political Science researcher, specialized in modern Afghanistan and Turkey and teaching International Relations at Paris 1 University, Pantheon-Sorbonne.
Forewords by Gilles Verneret, Art Director “le bleu du ciel” gallery at Lyon, and founder of the Lyon September Festival of Photography.
