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Mariam Ghani

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Mariam Ghani
مریم غنی
Born1978 (age 45–46)
New York City, U.S.
Occupation(s)Visual artist, photographer, filmmaker, social activist
Years active2000–present
Parent(s)Ashraf Ghani
Rula Saade

Mariam Ghani (Pashto/Dari: مریم غنی; born 1978) is an Afghan-American visual artist, photographer, filmmaker and social activist.

Biography

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Mariam Ghani was born in 1978 in Brooklyn, New York, [1] of Afghan and Lebanese descent. Her father, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, was president of Afghanistan.[2] Her mother, Rula Saade, is a Lebanese citizen.[3] Ghani grew up in exile and was unable to travel to Afghanistan until 2002, at age 24.[3] Her family lived in the suburbs of Maryland. Ghani earned her degrees from New York University and the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan[1] in comparative literature and video photography and installation art.[4] Ghani was an Eyebeam resident.[5][6] She is a member of the Visual Arts Faculty at Bennington College.[7]

Work

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Since 2004, Ghani has been working on a multi-media project entitled “Index of the Disappeared”, with her long-time collaborator and partner Chitra Ganesh.[8] The project is a record of the United States' detention of immigrants post-9/11 and public reaction to the treatment of immigrants. The project has grown and evolved over time, leading to a short film, How Do You See the Disappeared?,and a web project.[9] Some of the other materials are transcripts, some are scraps of video or radio clips.[1] She has presented her exhibits at the Transmediale Berlin (2003), Liverpool (2004), EMAP Seoul (2005), Tate Modern London (2007), the National Gallery Washington (2008), Beijing (2009) and Sharjah (2009, 2011).[4]

In addition to the Index, she has made multiple film projects, like Like Water From a Stone a 2013 project Ghani filmed in Stavanger, Norway about the transformation the country underwent with the discovery of oil; or a 2014 short film made in Ferguson, Missouri looking at the social upheaval institutionalised inequity has created in the US.[2] Other films, like The Trespassers, shown in Los Angeles in 2014, examines the problems inherent in translating languages.[10] Ghani sees her use of digital media and technology as a toolkit for creating her art.[11]

In addition to her creative art works, Ghani works as a journalist,[4] and writes and lectures on issues affecting the diaspora and as a member of the Gulf Labor Working Group, which is an advocacy group for workers building museums in Abu Dhabi.[12] She is also working as an archivist to digitize and reimage works produced between 1978 and 1991 by Afghan state filmmakers during the Communist period.[1] She has also commented that Radio Television Afghanistan has an "amazingly rich archive of audiovisual material deserving of wider attention."[13] Much of her work has a political component and speaks to systemic inequality in social systems and economics. She is both a women's rights and human rights activist.[1]

Ghani's feature-length film What We Left Unfinished is a documentary of incomplete Afghan films created from 1978 to 1991. In a 2021 interview with Art Forum, Ghani described her film What We Left Unfinished as a reflection on Afghanistan's unsettled communist period, from unfinished artworks to unfinished political movements.[14]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Liz, Robbins (20 February 2015). "Mariam Ghani, a Brooklyn Artist Whose Father Leads Afghanistan". The New York Times. New York, New York. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  2. ^ a b Pilgrim, Sophie (15 March 2015). "What links Kabul with Alaska, Norway's oil capital and St. Louis, Missouri?". Paris, France: France 24. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  3. ^ a b Goudsouzian, Tanya (1 October 2014). "Afghan first lady in shadow of 1920s queen?". Doha, Qatar: Al Jazeera. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  4. ^ a b c "Mariam Ghani". Documenta HR Online (in German). Frankfurt, Germany: Hessian Broadcasting. 26 June 2012. Archived from the original on 9 October 2014. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  5. ^ "Mariam Ghani | eyebeam.org". eyebeam.org. Retrieved 2016-01-28.
  6. ^ "Mariam Ghani | P.S.1 Studio Visit". momaps1.org. Retrieved 2016-02-01.
  7. ^ "Mariam Ghani".
  8. ^ Ganesh, Chitra; Ghani, Mariam (2011-09-01). "Introduction to an Index". Radical History Review. 2011 (111): 110–129. doi:10.1215/01636545-1268740. ISSN 0163-6545.
  9. ^ Saed, Zohra; Muradi, Sahar, eds. (2010). One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature. University of Arkansas Press. pp. 10–12. ISBN 9781610752909.
  10. ^ Miranda, Carolina A. (16 August 2014). "How L.A.'s Islamic art shows might expand our 'Middle East' vision". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  11. ^ Heuer, Megan (September 2013). "Digital Effects". Art in America. 101 (8): 96–105. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  12. ^ Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practices in North Africa and the Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd. 2014. pp. 346–347. ISBN 9781784530358.
  13. ^ Mohammad, Niala (31 October 2014). "The First Daughter of Afghanistan-Mariam Ghani". Across the Durand. Voice of America. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  14. ^ "Mariam Ghani on Afghanistan's unfinished histories". www.artforum.com. 22 September 2021. Retrieved 2021-09-28.
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