With Lihaaf, a quilting project, artist Arshi Ahmadzai and her collaborators embroider a challenge to patriarchy – Firstpost
FirstpostArtist Arshi Ahmadzai brought together women from Najibabad to work on a seven-metre scroll as part of Lihaaf, a quilting project. In community gatherings, functions, I am given strange looks and taunted.” When Arshi Ahmadzai conceptualised “Lihaaf”, a quilting project, she brought together Jaza and 20 other women from Najibabad to work on a seven-metre scroll. The Lihaaf project shares its name with an Ismat Chughtai short story, and draws on Arshi’s close observations of the injustices borne by women. She remembers an exchange she overheard as her collaborators worked on the scroll, which reaffirmed the need for a project like Lihaaf: “When things become too much to tolerate, I imagine another world where I am happy, the way I want to be.” — All photos and video courtesy Arshi Ahmadzai
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