Teens from two cultures share their views through photography

Despite the continuing agonies of war, deep corruption, and economic dislocation in Afghanistan, high school students there leaped at the opportunity to join with Philadelphia counterparts in an unusual photography project.

The fruits of their collaboration - an effort to capture images of freedom, religious expression, protest, and other instances of public involvement in Kabul and Philadelphia - will open simultaneously Friday at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul.

The Philadelphia exhibition of the show, titled "Being 'We the People': Afghanistan, America and the Minority Imprint," will remain on view through Sept. 26.

"This has been one of the single greatest and most poignant projects I've been involved in," said Philadelphia participant Ian McShea, 17, a senior at Constitution High School on South Seventh Street.

"There is a lot that can be said through the camera; it is a miracle," said Fatima Jafari, 16, of Marefat High School in Kabul.

Armed with funding from the American Association of Museums through a program that group runs with the U.S. State Department, 11 students from Constitution High School and 10 from Marefat High School learned documentary photography from the ground up.

Many of the students had never even held a camera before, but they were schooled in technical basics and then sent off into their communities.

Their photographs, portraying activities ranging from weddings to parades, prayer services to political demonstrations, broadly seek to convey ideas of citizenship and public life.

Beginning in July, students from both schools shared their work and ideas online at http://beingwethepeople.shutterfly.com/.

In March, the Afghan students traveled to the United States and met with their American peers to examine more than 500 photographs and select pairs - one image from each country - that illustrate differences and startling similarities between Afghanistan and the United States. They also wrote accompanying captions, explaining the circumstances under which the photographs were made.

"The camera taught me how to capture moments," said Jafari, the Marefat High student. "It is inspiring to be able to deal with living moments in a still frame. I have a tough future ahead, but I am determined not to surrender to the harsh realities of my community and my time. I want to be instrumental for a better change in my fate, and one of the ways I can accomplish this is through photography."

Her Constitution High counterpart, McShea, taught himself Dari, a variant of Persian spoken in Afghanistan, in anticipation of the Afghan students' visit to Philadelphia in March.

"Meeting the Afghan students has taught me volumes of things that I didn't know about Afghanistan, Islam, and the Muslim world in general," he said. "I have regained faith, not only in humanity, but especially in my own generation, my global brothers and sisters."

David Eisner, president and chief executive of the Constitution Center, said the project "sparked an important conversation about the meaning of citizenship, and the students are shining examples of active citizens."

Eisner predicted that the exhibit "will have a profound effect on visitors, who will be fascinated and shocked by the parallels in the photographs."

Visitors to the exhibitions in both Philadelphia and Kabul will be able to view additional photo pairings on electronic touch-screens and recommend those that resonate with them most. Users will be able to see how their recommendations compare with those made by other visitors to the Constitution Center and the National Museum.

The photographs will remain on the Constitution Center's website at www.constitutioncenter.org/international.

"The world remembers and knows Afghanistan by the pictures of war and agonies," Kabul resident Zainab Haidary, 19, wrote on the students' idea-sharing website. "It is time now that the world should get the other pictures of my country, too; a country where its people are working for a great change."