My experience at the Herat University
Stories through images
by Alessandro Belgiojoso
Thanks to the project promoted by Cattolica University of Milan in association with Fondiaria Sai Foundation, I had the privilege of sharing my experience as a photographer with female Afghan students in a photojournalism course at the Herat University.
The students had the opportunity to put to use the acquired notions returning to their everyday life with a digital camera in hand and reporting back a great number of images which no westerner could have collected thanks to their status as locals.
All the acquired material is constant proof that no one better than them can describe their world and culture without having to compare them to ours.
This collection of stories is a witness to a culture far removed from our own but keeping archaic customs alive has preserved its traditions.
On one side we have an artisan building musical instruments with techniques which were outdated in our middle ages, on the other we find one creating an unobtainable spare part for a fridge, who can teach us something about our excessive consumerism.
Finally you can meet the owner of a Herat television shop admitting they only keep images of natural sceneries on the switched on TV sets and avoid news programs because “bad news doesn’t sell TV’s”.
My suggestion is to look at these stories not just as folklore but as a critical view point on our being a developed world.
