Afghan Jewellery: or the Beauty of Archaic Art

There is something so alluring and feminine about Afghan Jewellery. Since discovered by the Hippie movement no festival and no Indian Summer can be imagined without it. The heavy and still elegant pieces can easily combined with any kind of western urban chic to unleash the gipsy princess within...

I am so happy thet I found the webshop of saneens where you can order all kind of Aghan jewellery, but also Antiques and traditional Afghan garments (there will be an extra post on these, stay tuned!).

I can only recomend this shop, they ship worldwide and really fast, plus they have a super friendly customer service in English .. just ask then anything!

Plus ... shhhh, this is our secret ;-) ... they offer a special discount for all Anarkali readers.

Use this coupon code at the ceckout to save 10% on you order!!

CI7622LNL3B6

 Are you still here? What are you waiting for! Rush to www.saneens.com!

Pendant with metal tassels

Earrings with small bells and coloured glass beads

Adornment for braids, can als be used as rings

Tikka of forehead adornement

Lapislazuli bangle

Bracelets 

Bracelets and headpiece

Picture credits: pictures 1, 3, 5, 6 from saneens.com

Afghanistan Everywhere: Grand Bazaar

Irresistible.
credits:
Photography by Begum Yetis
Styling by Dilara Fındıkoglu
Hair by Tayfun Kaydok
Makeup by Ufuk Celep
Model Kat Cordts @ Joy Models Istanbul

found via: theones2watch

Joy of Dancing: Anar Dana DVD Release

It arrived yesterday ... and I just had  to flip through the beautiful dances of the DVD to soak in the beauty immediately... like a yummy variety of fruits on a silver tray there are traditional and little know dances from a large number of places between North Africa and India, either performed by the Anar Dana group or by Helene herself, in carefully handsewn costumes - a feast for every lover of authentic dances of the East!
Featuring dances from:
Baluchistan, Rajasthan, Algeria, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, Iran, the West Sahara, Morocco and Kurdistan.
I have written in a previous post about my beloved teacher Helene Eriksen and I simply can not get enough of her art!
If you love traditional Eastern dancing don't miss this opportunity, you can order the DVD at: mail@helene-eriksen.de.

Weimar Refugee Women Group: And how to Cook a German Dinner

The idea had been in my head quite a long time but it was finally realized only a couple of weeks ago: We founded a Women Group in the refugees' hostel.
To be a refugee in Germany is hard. The government provides what is prescibed by the law: accomodation, medical assistance, food and scooling for the kids. This is a lot, right, especially compared to the circumstances that have driven people to leave their homelands, but an essential part is missing: a perspective for the future. Many persons, even whole families have to wait for years, even decades, until their residential status becomes clear. So they are forced to live a life inbetween, without knowing what will happen, if they are allowed to stay or if they will be expelled from one day to the other.
Especially for the women this is very hard. Mostly they come from societies where the family is the most important bond. Alone here in a foreign country the are forced to stay alone in their houses because the net is not there and they are not used to go out for cultural reasons, while their men usually make new acquaintances quite quickly. Mostly the hostels are placed far from the city without a good connection, sometimes even without a decent street lighting (e.g. here), so in winter it is even dangerous to leave home after 4 p.m.
So the idea was born to establish a network in the hostel itself and it is working out nicely, desipe of language barriers and a lot of kids to look after. Recently the first step out has been made: The women group of the "Inner Wheel" invited us to a typical German christmas dinner.

 

Cooking toghether was really fun! We had duck from the oven, red cabbage and potato dumplings as main course and baked apples for dessert.

 We discovered that the most beautiful "Knödel" (potato dumplings) were made from Afghan hands!

Below a snippet from the local newspaper the next day with myself ( not quite deservedly) in the centre.

 And finally we all enjoyed the yummy food with the husbands and the kids!

 

Afganistan: And Tales of Daily Life

Picture by H. Kreutzmann

Today I finally managed to see this wonderful exhibition on Afghanistan in a small but very beautiful museum of natural history in Altenburg, in eastern Thuringia.
The exhibition features three aspects of the daily life from different tribes in different living spaces across the country. You have there the black tent of livestock breeding nomads, a reconstruction of a small house in the oasis of the river Andhkoy, as well as tools and clothes of gypsies who travel between urban settlements.

Picture by Steffen Graupmann

The combination of everyday artefacts and pictures from the sixties and from today was very touching and give a holistic impression of varieties and social changes and their interdependence from narrowing resources, which in Afghanistan is prominently water.
If yo happen to pass through Altenburg until the 30th of October make sure not to miss this exhibition!

Textile Art from Afghanistan

For centuries the Silk Road has been a channel for the diffusion of extremely skilled artisanate, converting everyday objects to beautiful art pieces. One of the most important branches is textile art. Unfortunately the free flow of goods has been interrupted nowadays and the difficult economic situation in the countries along the ancient Silk Road does not benefit the request of high-art luxury items. Consumers in the local markets prefer bright, flashy and affordable, machine produced embroidrey. Abroad customers request high-quality hand made items, but they form only a small fraction of the market. So the traditional artisans switch to more profitable methods of productions.

But there are also opposite developments, often supported from abroad. One of these companies is Zardozi ("Gold-embroidery"), an Afghan NGO that employs 91 people in Kabul, Jalalabad and Peshawar, manifacturing and selling the home production of more than 1500 home-working women.


Zardozi works on both sides of difficult Afghan-Pakistani border, creating livelihoods for Afghans in refuge. As well, they embroider and manufacture goods within Afghanistan, so that returning Afghans can bring their skilled livelihoods home with them.

They offer a women-clothes line as well as highly decorative accessoires. Cross-stitches from different regions give us an insight on the most private beauty of an endangered culture...


I highly admire the lovely work of those women and I love the idea that not only old artisan techniques are preserved, but that women are encouraged to contribute to the family income with their own hands.
And aren't these recycled Burkhas just gorgeous? Handbags and bottle-covers add new meanings to these extremely discussed pieces of fabric!

Reading Afghanistan: Atiq Rahimi's "The Patience Stone"

For his first novel in French (his former works have been written in Persian) Afghan author and filmmaker Atiq Rahimi received the Prix Goncourt in 2008, France's most important literary prize for fiction.
The setting is a room where a woman cares for her war injured, paralyzed husband. Although he lies motionless in a coma, his wife not only nurses him, but addresses her long soliloquy to this half-dead man, opening up her heart and speaking frankly of her married life.
In his writigs emerges a unique kosmos with motives from the experiences of Afghan people, but in the same moment transcending it's historical context assimilating symbols and narratives from Persian sufi literature.
Read an excellent review of the German version here and a beautiful article about the author in French here.
The English translation will be published in January, 2010. Stay tuned!

Hidden Beauty: Fashion from Kabul

We had much of Afghanistan in the news lately - a lot of violence, war and poverty. But there is so much more to discover from a country where art, philosophy, mathematics, music and poetry have been blossoming for hundreds of years!

(Handloomed fabric for a long jacket)

(Long Chapan with antique emboidery)

Nowadays beauty is a hidden flower in Afghanistan, but it's still growing. For example in the workshops of Zarif Design, a fashion label created by Zolaykha Sherzad. Architect and founder of an Kabul-based NGO, "School of Hope", Zolaykha began to work in 2004 with traditional artisans and crafters aiming at preserving and reviving the Afghan Artistic Culture.

She draws inspiration from old weaving techniques and needlework of the different populations of Afghanistan, as well as from contemporary Dari (persian dialect of Afghanistan) poetry (see calligraphy below).

(Ikat chapan with antique embroidery)

Every piece of her collections is absolutely stunning combinations of traditional artisanate and timeless elgance.

(Chapan from handwoven textile and Zarif embroidery)

(Raw silk with embroidered calligraphy)

Find more information here and here. Buy here.