Fragmented Futures Zine
Marking the centennial of the “modern Afghan state”, Fragmented Futures: Afghanistan 100 Years Later is an unprecedented exhibit that employs art, writing, film, and scholarship to probe the ongoing consequences of foreign intervention in Afghanistan and the future of its diaspora. The exhibit, conceived and curated by the Afghan American Artists & Writers Association, expands the conversation beyond prevailing depictions and sheds light on how Afghans’ everyday aspirations continue to be interrupted, transformed, and reborn in both the diaspora and in an ever-changing Afghanistan. This zine was created specically for the exhibit and features art and writing that prompt us to reimagine Afghanistan, its people, and their many futures. It is meant to stand as its own knowledge artifact—a unique artistic object that archives and establishes diasporic voices. Situated amongst more well known texts, its very presence is an intervention into the canon.
Marking the centennial of the “modern Afghan state”, Fragmented
Futures: Afghanistan 100 Years Later is an unprecedented exhibit that employs art, writing, film, and scholarship to probe the ongoing consequences of foreign intervention in Afghanistan and the future of its diaspora. The exhibit, conceived and curated by the Afghan American Artists & Writers Association, expands the conversation beyond prevailing depictions and sheds light on how Afghans’ everyday aspirations continue to be interrupted, transformed, and reborn in both the diaspora and in an
ever-changing Afghanistan. This zine was created specically for the
exhibit and features art and writing that prompt us to reimagine
Afghanistan, its people, and their many futures. It is meant to stand as
its own knowledge artifact—a unique artistic object that archives and
establishes diasporic voices. Situated amongst more well known texts,
its very presence is an intervention into the canon.
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meet his son’s eyes, if he would be able to finally see him and say goodbye to
him. His growing desire to connect with his son began to twist his stomach
with anguish but his body was immovable. Eli was standing behind his mother,
holding on to her flowing skirt with a grip that anchored him to his only sense
of reality. Ali’s yearning gaze stretched to reach his son, but he could not reach
him. Defeated he knew he had to summon his last bit of bravery and strength to
face Raheel, who was standing beside Rabia, her small fingers interwoven with
her mother’s slender ones.
She looked up at him with her big brown eyes, glazed with stubborn tears.
What could he say to her? He couldn’t swallow any more lies so he fell silent.
Words wouldn’t fit the moment, or at least he didn’t know the words that would.
He attempted to smile at her, to show her some warmth, something worth
remembering but he could not summon his control of his grief-stricken face, so
he leaned in toward his wife. Her soft smell of petals and earth drew him in closer
to her, he kissed her flushed cheek with desperation and searched for something
to say to her.
Take care…
He meant take care of yourself my beloved wife, please take care of our dear
children, take care of our family, please take care of, be careful of, but his heart
had already begun to grow stone-like, proving speaking to be a difficult task.
Sooner than he imagined, his family slipped away from him into the large crowd
before him. Reb’s crying that carried through the dense air reached his ear, aching
his heart, it marked their position in the mass of people. He waved at them
frantically, he opened his mouth hoping for words to release, any words would be
fine. He wanted to tell him he would see them soon, but the lies cut his tongue
and his hands signed his love for them through the air. He waved them goodbye
with uncertainty of ever seeing them again, and with this thought they were out
of his sight, lost in a crowd of people heading to Amrika.
The last words he had spoken had a spoiled residue on his tongue, so he
thought to spit it out. With this urge, Ali felt his stomach take control of his
body, urging him to rush through the crowd that suffocated him. With a few
desperate leaps against the crowd, he jolted towards a street corner that would
bear the weight of his panic-stricken body. At once, with his arms spread wide
against the wall before him in surrender, Ali began to vomit; a bile of regret and
sudden emptiness spilled from deep within him. A fevered sweat had soaked the
clothes over his shivering body, but it was tears that had drenched his face. A
salty bitterness glazed his mouth as he straightened his body in a desperate act of
composing himself.
He shut his sore eyes, searching for the direction he would need to travel
home, but could he even go could home? He could not imagine setting a foot in
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