phd
 

PhD Thesis Title: From Invasion to Evacuation: Creative Resistance & Cultural Myth-Making Amongst Diaspora Afghan Contemporary Artists (working title)

PhD Supervisor: Julie Billaud

Through an anthropology of art and postcolonial studies, the research will explore the relationship between the ‘invention’ of contemporary art in Afghanistan and the foreign-backed neocolonial experiment of modernisation and nation-building between 2001-2021. Indeed, the ‘myth’ tells us that the emergence of Afghan contemporary art during this period was the result of a local, Afghan movement. However, although it may have subsequently been given locally-ascribed meaning and momentum, Afghan contemporary art developed within, indeed was a direct result of, invasion, occupation, and foreign-funded development initiatives. The research will examine how Afghan artists navigated through this experiment, and how many continue to contribute to myth-making as part of a post-evacuation diaspora since the Taliban retook control of the country in mid-August 2021. This research aims to understand the way in which contemporary art developed in Afghanistan, how a post-evacuation diaspora of Afghan contemporary artists was subsequently created, and how these artists continue to define themselves and their artistic practices in host countries. More precisely, I want to understand how displaced artists find a sense of belonging and continue to legitimize, or on the contrary challenge, the ‘myth’ of Afghan contemporary art within their new environments when the complicated experimental context within which they were born no longer exists. I am interested in examining the new power structures and dynamics within the social environments where they continue to create, and how their diasporic experiences may challenge those structures as they navigate EuroAmerican-centric art exhibitions, galleries, and markets locally, regionally, and globally.
 

Profile

Wiith degrees (B.A., M.A.) in Cultural Anthropology, Aman Mojadidi spent over 15 years working as a conceptual artist and in the fields of art and culture within the international development sector. His research and creative practice to date have utilised an experimental ethnographic approach, combining qualitative research, traditional storytelling, postmodern narrative strategies, and mixed-media artworks (often site-specific installations and participative performances) to approach themes such as belonging, the politics of representation, conflict, neo-orientalism, artifactual history, the burden of representation, neo-colonialism, and migration; intentionally blurring and merging the lines between fact and fiction, documentation and imagination.

His artwork has been exhibited internationally including the LindenMuseum-Stuttgart, Imperial War Museum-London and Manchester, Times Square, NYC, Images Biennale-Roskilde, 3rd Dhaka Art Summit, 12th Havana Biennale, 3rd Asia Triennial Manchester, 1st Kochi/Muziris Biennale, and dOCUMENTA (13). In 2012, he was selected as a TED Fellow for the subversively critical nature of his artistic practice while living in Kabul, Afghanistan.
 

Research Interests
 

• Afghanistan
• Contemporary Art
• Neo-colonialism
• Int'l Development
• War on Terror
• Politics of Representation
• Neo-orientalism
• Diasporas

Publications and Works
 

• 2023 The Exhibition; Edited Volume: The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Art in Global Asia. Routledge.
• 2016 The Art of Conflict Chic: Imagined Geographies & the Search for a Post-Orientalist Identity; Conflict & Compassion: A Paradox of Difference in Contemporary Asian Art. HOME Publishers.
• 2010 Home and What Can One Say About Living in Kabul?; Edited Volume: One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan-American Literature. University of Arkansas Press.
• 2007 Humanitarians with Guns: Globalized Rights, Cultural Space, & Militarized Aid in Afghanistan; Edited Volume: Challenges and Paths to Global Justice. Palgrave McMillan.
• 2024 Guest Lecturer, Contemporary Art Markets and Systems II – Global Economics, Università Bocconi, Milan, Italy
• 2022 Invited Speaker, “Artistic Research: Method, Strategy, & Outreach” Conference, Dresden University of Fine Arts (HfBK), Dresden, Germany
• 2022 Guest Lecturer, “Ethnography & Social Art: Vehicles for Cultural Understanding & Change,” University of California-Berkeley, Art Practice Department, Berkeley, California
• 2014 Artist-in-Residence, la Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, France
• 2014 Visiting Fellow, Participating in Politics: Art, Anthropology, and Advocacy in Afghanistan, Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont
• 2013 Artist-in-Residence, Traffic - Museum Without Walls, Dubai, UAE
• 2012 KHOJ Artist-in-Residence, Dharamsala, India
• 2010 Guest Lecturer, “Artistic Practice of a Southern Fried Afghan,” International Intervention & Contemporary Culture in Afghanistan Course, Sciences Po, Paris, France