Dates and Times
14 August 2025
12:30 - 13:30
Event for
Location
Organiser
Centre for Cultural and Creative Research (CCCR), Faculty of Art and Design
Speakers
Kabir Mokamel
Enquiry
Centre for Cultural and Creative Research (CCCR)
Event about:
Culture and Creativity Seminar – Healing Through Resistance: The Art of Young Women in Afghanistan
Speaker: Kabir Mokamel
Date\Time: Thursday 14 August 2025, 12:30-13:30
Location: Building 1 Level A Room 1A21, University of Canberra (NB Room 1a21 is accessed from the foyer joining Building 1 and Mizzuna café);
or Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/95029077504
Abstract
In the face of systemic exclusion from education and public life, young girls in Afghanistan are turning to art as both a means of resistance and a form of emotional survival. This seminar explores how creative expression through drawing, embroidery, calligraphy, and storytelling, becomes a quiet but powerful form of protest against erasure. At the same time, these artistic practices serve as tools for personal and collective healing, helping young women process trauma, preserve identity, and maintain hope. This session examines the dual role of creativity as a sanctuary and a political act in one of the world’s most repressive environments for women and girls.
All are welcome!
Description of Image
The Flight is a tribute to the courage of girls who dare to imagine a future beyond barriers, and a reminder that even in silence, resistance takes flight.
This image captures a young Afghan girl reaching toward a jagged tear in a grey wall. A wall symbolic of generations of silence, oppression, and erasure. Through this tear, a burst of blue sky emerges, carrying white doves into flight. Her small hand, extended upward with determination, suggests not just a personal act of defiance, but a legacy of resistance shared by countless Afghan girls before her.
Dressed in a rose-patterned garment, she stands rooted in her culture and resilience, confronting a wall built by patriarchy, war, and censorship. Walls rebuilt again and again with each regime, each crackdown, each stolen right. But with each gesture like hers, each brushstroke, song, or whispered dream that wall begins to split.
Bio
Kabir Mokamel is a visual artist and activist from Afghanistan, and the co-founder of ArtLords, a collective renowned for turning the country’s blast walls into powerful murals promoting justice, healing, and civic engagement. Through his art, Kabir fosters dialogue and social transformation, both in Afghanistan and internationally. His murals have appeared around the world, but his work remains deeply rooted in the Afghan context. Living and working in Afghanistan, he is dedicated to reclaiming public space, uplifting unheard voices, and using art as a resilient form of resistance and hope.
The Culture and Creativity Seminar Series is hosted by the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research (CCCR), Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra. To discover upcoming seminars, please follow us on Facebook @uccccr, or Instagram and Twitter @uc_cccr. Alternatively, join our mailing list by emailing cccr@canberra.edu.au.
Any questions and accessibility requests please contact: cccr@canberra.edu.au.
UC acknowledges the Ngunnawal people, traditional custodians of the lands where Bruce campus is situated. We wish to acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of Canberra and the region. We also acknowledge all other First Nations Peoples on whose lands we gather.