City Lore, NYC, 2015
Over the course of three nights in October 2015 in NYC’s east village, AAAWA hosted a multimedia and multidisciplinary forum for artists, writers, and performers from throughout the diaspora. “Distant Attachments: Unsettling Contemporary Afghan Diasporic Art” was sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and City Lore in New York. The series reflected on what it means to be categorized as part of a particular cultural community (“Afghans”, “Afghan Americans,” the “Afghan diaspora”, etc). Through the series we complicated the assumption that the Afghan diaspora’s way of approaching and producing art is universally the same. We questioned the idea that Afghan Americans hold the same kinds of emotional and sentimental attachments and commitments to Afghanistan (i.e. to its reconstruction, rehabilitation, and redevelopment).
Through bringing together art, writing, film, and other visual forms, the event unsettled the idea that diasporic creative expression begins from the same types of emotional attachments. The series highlighted the tension that animates art coming out of the diaspora: a tension between the desire to remain connected to but not pinned down by particular histories, groupings, and recognitions of Afghanistan as a point of origin. Through “Distant Attachments,” we moved toward a more uncertain, dubious, and liminal imaginary of culture. The curated pieces and an interdisciplinary panel discussion provoked the audience to question their assumptions around migrant diasporas. As a group who has occupied a very specific place in the American public consciousness over the past 13 years, Afghan Americans showed the complexities of their everyday lives as migrants, citizens, and community members.
