Cyclist peddles past a mural painted on the wall along a road in Kabul. Photo: AFP
The images of workers rolling white paint over the art were deeply foreboding for Sharifi, whose ArtLords collective has created more than 2,200 murals across the country since 2014. Among the erased murals was one showing US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar shaking hands after signing the 2020 deal to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan.Sharifi co-founded ArtLords in 2014, using art to campaign for peace, social justice and accountability.
Within hours, they saw panicked people rushing out of government offices and decided to return to the ArtLords gallery."The army, the police were coming from all sides, abandoning their cars and everybody was running."'It never goes away' Sharifi said he"vividly remembers" the public punishments at a football stadium in Kabul, including beheadings and amputations for various crimes.
"It's a very difficult choice , and I just hope nobody ever experiences what we went through," he said.