When Lida Abdul was finally able to return in 2005, she began her own curative engagement with Afghanistan by enacting a series of ritualized performances in the devastated architectural spaces that dominate the environs of Kabul. A ruined presidential complex, with remnants of columns like an ancient Greek temple, is the wrecked site of White House. In a meditative reordering of chaos, Abdul slowly, with method and intent, brushes white paint on each wall, each inconsequential fragment of rubble. As a cathartic act, Abdul sublimates the manifestations of war and reclaims the ruined space as both a mnemonic site of the past and a hopeful monument for a future as yet unrealized.
Lida Abdul was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1973. She lived in Germany and India as a refugee before moving to the U.S. She received her MFA from the University of California, Irvine in 2000. Her works crosses formalist boundaries and merges traditions—Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, pagan and nomadic—that collectively influenced Afghan art and culture. In 2006 she was named a Prince Claus Award laureate. Her recent exhibitions include Afghanistan Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2005), Thermocline of Art - New Asian Waves, Karlsruhe, Germany (2007), and the mid-career retrospective Lida Abdul, Centre A, Vancouver (2008). For the past few years, Abdul has been working in different parts of Afghanistan on projects exploring the relationship between architecture and identity.