EXHIBITION: THE SMILE OF AFGHANISTAN

OpeningFriday May 5th, 2017

5 pm to 7 pm

GESÙ - Centre de créativité1200, Bleury street

Place-des-arts Station

Free Entrance

Exhibition visiting hoursTuesday to Saturday

12 pm to 6 pm

Montreal, March 1st, 2017

Festival Accès Asie proudly presents The Smile of Afghanistan, an exhibition of recent work by Iranian photographer Hamed Tabein. A preview of the exhibition will take place at the Festival’s Opening on Friday, May 5th and will run through to Saturday, June 10th 2017 at Gesù – Centre de creativité. The public is invited to attend the opening on Friday, May 5th from 5 to 7 pm, preceded by a perfor-mance of Golestan, afghans dance troupe.

The Smile of Afghanistan is a documentary photography project that began in 2013 reflecting the life of the Afghan people full of hope and happiness. With this photo exhibition, Tabein wants to portray Afghanistan in a new light, different from the one we see most often, tarnished by years of war and suffering. Instead, Tabe-in’s photos reveal the hope of a people’s hard work reconstructing their country, and of the happiness that prevails despite their diffi-culties.

Tabein found it difficult to photograph the smile of these Afghans as Smile demonstrates their confidence against and defiance of the stranger. After the events of the past 30 years, a feeling of mistrust has developed among the population and public demonstrations of joy are unusual. In this exhibition there will be as many genuine smiles as suspicious ones.

The Smile of Afghanistan is a two-part project that includes docu-mentary photography and photography lessons for young Afghans, girls in particular.

In collaboration with:

Press Relations – Communications • Lise Raymond • 450 640-0500 • info@clraymond.com

Press ReleaseFor immediate release

Hamed Tabein – PhotographerIranian born Hamed Tabein has been involved in the world of pho-tography for twenty years. Tabein is an artist and a teacher as well as exhibitions’ executive director and general manager of photog-raphy festivals. His work has been exhibited all over the world and published in National Geographic. He has written on photography for various magazines. Tabein is currently taking part in the Resi-dency Project of the Maison de la photo de Montreal which exhibits in several Canadian cities. At the moment, Tabein is studying pho-tography at Concordia University and taking professional photog-raphy courses at The Museum of Modern Arts in New York. Tabein is a member of the Fédération Professionnelle des Journalistes du Québec, the Canadian Association for Photographic Art, and Pho-

Press Relations – Communications • Lise Raymond • 450 640-0500 • info@clraymond.com

This project has benefited from the support of numerous Ca-nadian and Afghan institutions, such as the Afghan Embas-sy in Ottawa, The Afghan Women’s Association in Toronto, The Afghan Women’s Association in Montreal, the Afghan-Cana-dienne Maison, Zarnegar Magazine, and Hafteh newspaper.

Golestan – Afghan dances troupeGolestan troupe is composed of three young women with var-ied backgrounds, but with the same desire to promote and dis-cover the dances and culture of the East, especially those of Afghanistan. While Valeska, Sandra and Mariyam all have a background in oriental dance, they each have their own unique style. Indeed, Valeska’s dance is tinged with flamenco, Sandra’s with tribal-fusion and Mariyam’s with Afghan dance. They have each participated in numerous performances and are very in-volved in the world of oriental dance. Today, they continue their training and nourish their passion for the dances of the Orient.

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