WHERE THERE WAS FIRE ASHES REMAIN - Opening Night
Thu, Apr 20
|Galeria Militar
Join us for the Opening Night of Christa Assads latest art show, WHERE THERE WAS FIRE ASHES REMAIN / DONDE HUBO FUEGO CENIZAS QUEDAN. Art, Music and Cocktails provided. Please RSVP.
Time & Location
Apr 20, 2023, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM MDT
Galeria Militar, Heroico Colegio Militar 120, Centro, 23300 Todos Santos, B.C.S., Mexico
Guests
About the event
In August of 2021, the United States completed one of the largest air-evacuations in history, removing all of their armed forces, American citizens, and selected Afghans from the devastated country of Afghanistan. After more than twenty years of war, the Taliban once again seized power and began their tyrannical reign, effectively turning back the clock decades to a past era of gender apartheid.
Taking immediate action to dominate and subordinate the female strata of the population, the Taliban has forced Afghan women back into head-to-toe burkas, while stripping them of their fundamental human rights. Girls and young women are once again denied secondary and university education, forced to leave their jobs, and kept indoors. In a shocking decree announced just this February, all pharmacies in two major cities of Afghanistan were ordered by the Taliban to stop stocking all forms of birth control medicines. Restricting contraceptives is devastating to women in a country with limited health-care provisions — and a death rate of one in 14 women from causes related to pregnancy.
Historically, the Taliban have beaten, raped, mutilated, and publicly executed women for violating their policies. The atrocities go further than this. But where there once was fire, ashes remain — smoldering ashes and flickers of flame not yet extinguished. Women are rising up in protest of having their basic human rights invalidated: the right to education, the right to work, the right to go outdoors alone, the right to make decisions about their own bodies. The women depicted in this exhibition are only a small but powerful example of the bravery and human perseverance arising from the ashes of the collapse. I honor these women and all of the girls and women of Afghanistan, as they fight to keep the flame of hope burning in the otherwise lightless tunnel ahead.
Artist Biography
Christa Assad is a feminist artist based in Todos Santos Baja, Mexico. Her recent exhibitions focus on women heroes of Mexico and Afghanistan, and the plight of women of these countries and many other patriarchal nations. Assad was awarded a J. William Fulbright Research and Travel Grant (1993) and was nominated for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award (2005). Her work is in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Cafesjian Center for the Arts in Yerevan, Armenia, the Ceramic Research Center at Arizona State University Museum, and the Penn State Fulbright Collection.