Focus Association invites Shamsia Hassani, Kabul’s most famous graffiti artist, and Zurich street artist Lisa Looser to a collaborative art event. On Sunday afternoon, the two artists will paint the Veli & Amos billboard on the Perla Mode terrace.
Shamsia Hassani wants to bring art to the streets and into people’s minds: “Art can bring change, I am sure. If people see a work of art, it will perhaps only cause a small shock to their mind, but that can grow and grow.”
It is impossible for Shamsia Hassani to paint in public spaces. Some walls in the former Russian cultural centre in Kabul briefly offered her a protected opportunity to do so. Currently, however, the artist applies her graffiti almost exclusively with Photoshop to cityscapes on her computer. Her imaginative decorations and ornaments, typefaces and elegant burqa-clad women with feminine forms fly like detached, liberated dreams over rooftops, around dusty street corners and grey-brown blocks of houses.
With this campaign, Focus Association from Vevey is launching the transdisciplinary project “Sofa Kabul 2013/14”, which will take place with artists in Switzerland and Afghanistan. Shamsia Hassani was invited by “Terre des Femmes” as the main guest to the multi-day event “Voix des Femme”.