The Afghans: Pictures of Resilience, 2001 – 2011
Thirty-one 16 X 24 giclée photographic prints on papier canson.
Bio:
Peter Bussian is a photographer and filmmaker who has focused his work on refugees and other international development issues for the past 25 years. He has worked in more than twenty countries and has been commissioned by aid organizations such as the UN, The International Rescue Committee, CARE, Action Contre La Faim and many others. His photographs have appeared in media outlets including the New York Times, Paris-Match, The Oprah Winfrey Show and Foreign Assistance in Focus, a photography book.
Bussian has received several awards for his photographs of refugees from the Lucie Foundation and Interaction and they have been exhibited at the United Nations Secretariat and in several galleries in New York and Santa Fe. In 2007, he was featured in Golden Globe winning Afghan director Siddiq Barmak’s film, “Opium War”, which won The Golden Marc’Aurelio Critics’ Award for Best Film at the 2008 Rome Film Festival and was Afghanistan’s submission to the Academy Awards.
This is Bussian’s first solo exhibition and comes on the tenth anniversary of his work in Afghanistan. Although he has worked in many countries, Afghanistan is a special case for him – a place he immediately fell in love with and returned to over and over to document the incredible resilience of these people who have known nothing but war for thirty years. The photographs were made in nearly every province as well as in the border region of Pakistan over this ten year period, beginning when the Taliban were still in power. The exhibition has additional resonance in that it is held at Gallery g169, owned by Frank Langen, his good friend of many years.