Kubra Khademi
+ More infoAfghanes : une vitalité désespérée
Kubra Khademi, Mortaza Behboudi and anonymous artists from Kaboul
Afghanes : une vitalité désespérée is an immersive installation designed by visual artist and performer Kubra Khademi, international reporter Mortaza Behboudi, and a team of anonymous videographers from Kabul. Through sound, video, and a series of visual artworks, the installation invites audiences to hear, see, and feel the everyday resistance of women in Afghanistan in the face of systemic violence, confinement, and the gradual erosion of their rights since the return of the Taliban.
Visitors are invited to enter a space designed as an Afghan living room, gathered around a large tablecloth spread over carpets, on which ceramic pieces are arranged. On the walls are four windows, opening onto images of the streets of Kabul as they appear today. Within this enclosed space, the narrative unfolds through listening, sensory experience, and imagery. The testimonies of Laila, founder of a clandestine school for girls; Souhaila, an artist and singer; and Narges, a former teacher fighting for the release of her husband imprisoned by the Taliban, are revealed. Deprived of education, freedom of movement, and public expression, they nonetheless continue to resist in secrecy, through learning, creation, and transmission.
The installation tells the story of this fragile, clandestine vitality—desperate at times, yet always alive. Despite violence and enforced silence, the bodies, voices, and struggles of women endure in Afghanistan: they are still there.
Kubra Khademi is a Hazara Afghan feminist performance and visual artist based in Paris. Her work is shaped by her life as a woman and a refugee. She studied fine arts at Kabul University and later at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, Pakistan. In Lahore, she began creating public performances, a practice she continued after returning to Kabul, where her work responded to a male-dominated society marked by extreme patriarchal politics. After performing Armor in 2015, she was forced to flee her country of origin. She has continued her performance practice in Europe, supported by Latitudes Prod., while further developing her drawing and painting practice, represented by Galerie Eric Mouchet. In 2022, she created the official poster for the Avignon Festival and presented solo exhibitions at the Collection Lambert in Avignon and at the Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern in Germany. In 2023, the premiere of her new stage work The Golden Horizon (افق طلائی) took place at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. In 2024, she published her first graphic novel, La fille et le dragon, with Éditions Denoël, entrusting the narrative to sociologist and anthropologist Nicole Lapierre.
Mortaza Behboudi is a Franco-Afghan war reporter and filmmaker. Renowned for his commitment to covering conflict zones, he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Media category in 2019. In 2022, he received both the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award for War Correspondents and the Prix Varenne for his reporting (The Sale of Children in Afghanistan and Six Months After the Taliban’s Return). On January 7, 2023, while on assignment in Afghanistan, he was arrested by Taliban intelligence services, in particular the Haqqani network. Having extensively covered the country before and after their return to power in 2021, his arrest highlighted the growing threats to press freedom. After ten months in captivity, he was released on October 18, 2023. During his detention, in April 2023, he was awarded the Prize for Freedom of Expression by the International Association of Press Clubs, jointly with Polish journalist Andrzej Poczobut. In 2022, he was the only European journalist to infiltrate Iran to cover the Women, Life, Freedom movement. He has published the investigative book Woman, Life, Freedom: A Reporter Infiltrated at the Heart of the Iranian Revolt (Stéphane Frantz di Rippel Literary Prize 2025), as well as Fixers: Reporters Without Bylines.
Credits
Sound narrative: Mortaza Behboudi
Scenography, plastic installation and performance: Kubra Khademi
Video: Anonymous videographers and editors in Kabul
Lighting: Juliette Delfosse
Sound mixing: Eric Boisteau
Technical management: François Lewyllie
Coproduction Festival d’Avignon, Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Festival d’Automne à Paris, Les Halles de Schaerbeek (Bruxelles), Festival euro-scène Leipzig, Théâtre Molière Scène Nationale Archipel de Thau,Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles
With the support of the DRAC Hauts-de-France and Open Society Foundations via the Afghanistan Cultural Fund
Based on an original idea by Caroline Gillet.
Thanks to L’École d’Art du Beauvaisis, and ceramists Amandine Brunet and Valérie Dubuisson
