In 2016, I travelled to Afghanistan as part of a small team of researchers commissioned by the Edmund Rice Centre to report on the safety of rejected asylum seekers returned to the country by the Australian government. That report was titled, Responsibility to Protect and can be used to assist Afghan asylum claims.

While working in Kabul, I stumbled upon a community of young Afghan peace activists. I returned to Afghanistan in 2017 to help the community and its members record their compelling story. The book – The Kabul Peace House – is the result.

I used numerous methods, including photography, to record stories while in Afghanistan. The Imagining / Imagined Peace photography exhibition is a portrait of Afghanistan before the Taliban regained control of the country.

The images were taken in 2016-17, at a time when people dared to dream in the Western occupation’s promises of peace, prosperity, and freedom. The exhibition delves beneath the news reports to remind us that even in the most challenging circumstances, hope, love, and peace can flourish.

The exhibition includes 10 x A1-sized art mount photos and can be associated with many types of community events. Please contact me for exhibition details and bookings.

Afghanistan has been at war since 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded and occupied the nation. When the Soviet troops withdrew more than a decade later, the tribal warlords and militia who opposed them turned on one another and engaged in civil war. Out of this turmoil emerged the Taliban, who ruled the country until 2001 when the US and NATO invaded with promises of peace, democracy and prosperity. Eighteen years later, the fighting was worse than ever and the country was on the verge of collapse.

The country was being torn apart by fighting; the Taliban controlled or influenced more than a third of the nation; a branch of the Islamic State had established itself in certain provinces; and the international community was withdrawing from the country.

The Afghan people had lost confidence in their government and were losing hope that peace and stability could be restored in their country. The possible collapse of the government would lead to further conflict and potentially another period of divided warlord rule. All this was leading to people leaving the country in their hundreds of thousands.

In Afghanistan, there was pollution of every imaginable type, evident in every aspect of their life, which threatened health and life. Afghanistan is a member of the V20 group, a partnership of the twenty countries most vulnerable to the catastrophes of climate change. Inefficient sewerage, drainage, and waste management systems reduced The Kabul River to a fetid sewer. The growing number of internally displaced people fleeing the fighting, seeking security in Kabul, was overcrowding the city and draining the water table. Meanwhile the glaciers and snow pack in the surrounding mountains that previously fed the Kabul River were diminishing due to global warming. Drops in rainfall and snowfall had caused drought in 21 of the 34 provinces. 

At that time, the future of Afghanistan rested upon unreliable peace negotiations between the government and the Taliban and other armed opposition groups. Neither the government nor any of the opposition forces had proven themselves strong enough to win the war. Without a peace process, the most likely outcome was ongoing war.