Afghan Witness Walls:  Memory-keepers in a War Zone, 2011–2018

This collection is about what survives when everything else is gone. In post-conflict Afghanistan, overlooked walls endure collectively as atypical ledgers and reluctant historians.  After the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021, much of the fighting ended, and these walls persist. They saw a widow in black. A giraffe.  An empty stretcher.  Red Cross emblems.  Love poems.  Children dwarfed in a muddy field.  Confusing white squares.  Some are tattooed with aerosol art; other walls are untouched but no less charged with knowledge few comprehend.  Curators and collectors—buttoned-up, with wine in hand—might brand these images as merely “a found narrative,” “an outsider memory,” or just “war art,” although they’ve never tagged a wall that might be gone by morning. 

The project joins other artists; it avoids clichéd queer and BIPOC photography.

All images were made digitally on early morning walks or while crouching for safety. Others were shot through bulletproof glass while driving. A tripod was rarely used. The process was shaped by necessity, but most images—and the thoughts behind them—were planned weeks in advance. 

I photographed these walls with a passion for seven years.  Why?  Because each wall records an unmitigated truth that provides raw testimony—if you listen.  They’ve witnessed latent grief we might try to forget but nevertheless must remember.  Their inability to speak is, paradoxically, what gives them an important “voice.”  I had to photograph their voice. 

These Afghan walls are witnesses. Now, so are you.