In Tehran, where Shamsia Hassani was born to Afghan refugees in 1988, restrictive policies denied her access to a formal arts education due to her immigrant status. It wasn’t until Hassani and her family returned to their native Afghanistan in 2005 that she could fully pursue that passion, earning degrees in the visual arts from Kabul University. Now, two decades later, Hassani, who is known as “Afghanistan’s first female graffiti and street artist,” is staging her first solo exhibition in the United Kingdom.
Currently on view at Dorothy Circus Gallery in London, The Dreamer catalogs the impact and significance of Hassani’s street art, which considers themes like feminism, displacement, gendered oppression, resilience, and hope. Much of Hassani’s work incorporates singular, highly illustrative figures, often enveloped in stylized burqas and depicted with their eyes firmly shut. Hassani strikes a delicate balance throughout these compositions, evoking the simultaneous determination and historical suppression of Afghan women by repurposing cultural symbols.
“I prefer that the signs of my roots be present in each of my works in some way, whether in the content or in the margins and details,” Hassani tells My Modern Met. “My character’s clothes, for example, are a combination of traditional Afghan clothes and my own creations.”
