{{Short description|American artist (born 1978)}} {{Infobox person |name = Mariam Ghani |native_name = {{lang|fa| مریم غنی}} |image = Arts Practicum - Artist Mariam Ghani in her Brooklyn studio (48379882472) (cropped).jpg |image_size = |caption = |birth_name = |birth_date = {{birth year and age|1978}} |birth_place = New York City, U.S. |occupation = Visual artist, photographer, filmmaker, social activist |years_active = 2000–present |parents = Ashraf Ghani<br />Rula Saade }} '''Mariam Ghani''' (Pashto/Dari: مریم غنی; born 1978) is an American visual artist, photographer, filmmaker and social activist. A member of the Visual Arts faculty at Bennington College, Ghani is the collaborator and partner of Chitra Ganesh and is represented by Ryan Lee Gallery.<ref name="VA">{{Cite web |title=Mariam Ghani |url=https://www.bennington.edu/academics/faculty/mariam-ghani}}</ref> Her work has been featured in venues like the Tate Modern and the National Gallery of Art, and she has produced several projects including ''Index of the Disappeared'' as well as films like ''Like Water From a Stone and What We Left Unfinished''.
==Early life and education== Mariam Ghani was born in 1978 in Brooklyn, New York to an Afghan father and a Lebanese mother.<ref name="childhood">{{cite news |last1=Liz |first1=Robbins |date=20 February 2015 |title=Mariam Ghani, a Brooklyn Artist Whose Father Leads Afghanistan |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/nyregion/mariam-ghani-a-brooklyn-artist-whose-father-leads-afghanistan.html?_r=1 |access-date=1 August 2015 |work=The New York Times |location=New York, New York}}</ref> Her father, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, served as the president of Afghanistan from 2014 to 2021.<ref name="Biography">{{cite news|last1=Pilgrim|first1=Sophie|title=What links Kabul with Alaska, Norway's oil capital and St. Louis, Missouri?|url=http://www.france24.com/en/20150312-norway-oil-kabul-ferguson-afghanistan-first-daughter-mariam-ghani-artist|access-date=1 August 2015|publisher=France 24|date=15 March 2015|location=Paris, France}}</ref> Her mother, Rula Saade, is a Lebanese citizen.<ref name="mother">{{cite news|last1=Goudsouzian|first1=Tanya|title=Afghan first lady in shadow of 1920s queen?|url=http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/09/afghan-first-lady-shadow-1920s-queen-2014930142515254965.html?utm=from_old_mobile|access-date=1 August 2015|publisher=Al Jazeera|date=1 October 2014|location=Doha, Qatar}}</ref> Living in the suburbs of Maryland, Ghani grew up in exile and was unable to travel to Afghanistan until 2002 when she was age 24.<ref name="mother" />
In 2000, Ghani graduated from New York University with an undergraduate degree in comparative literature. She then earned a Master of Fine Arts in video photography and installation art from the School of Visual Arts in 2002.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Mariam Ghani {{!}} P.S.1 Studio Visit|url = http://momaps1.org/studio-visit/artist/mariam-ghani|website = momaps1.org|access-date = 2016-02-01|archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20150120223157/http://momaps1.org/studio-visit/artist/mariam-ghani|archive-date=2015-01-20}}</ref>
== Work == Ghani sees her use of digital media and technology as a toolkit for creating her art.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Heuer |first=Megan |date=September 2013 |title=Digital Effects |url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=90252964&site=ehost-live |journal=Art in America |volume=101 |issue=8 |pages=96–105 |url-access=subscription |access-date=31 July 2015}}</ref> Much of her work has a political component and speaks to systemic inequality in social and economic systems, and she considers herself both a women's rights and human rights activist.<ref name="childhood" /> She has presented her exhibits at the Transmediale (2003), in Liverpool (2004), at EMAP Seoul (2005), at the Tate Modern (2007), at the National Gallery of Art (2008), in Beijing (2009), and in Sharjah (2009, 2011).<ref name="cv">{{cite web |title=cv |date=16 April 2015 |url=https://www.mariamghani.com/cv |access-date=20 December 2024}}</ref> From 2004–2005, she was an Eyebeam resident.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mariam Ghani {{!}} eyebeam.org |url=http://eyebeam.org/people/mariam-ghani |access-date=2016-01-28 |website=eyebeam.org}}</ref> Since 2018, Ghani has been a member of the Visual Arts Faculty at Bennington College.<ref name="VA" /><ref name="cv" />
Since 2004, Ghani has been working on a multimedia project entitled ''Index of the Disappeared,'' with her long-time collaborator and partner Chitra Ganesh.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = Introduction to an Index|url = http://rhr.dukejournals.org/content/2011/111/110|journal = Radical History Review|date = 2011-09-01|issn = 0163-6545|pages = 110–129|volume = 2011|issue = 111|doi = 10.1215/01636545-1268740|language = en|first1 = Chitra|last1 = Ganesh|first2 = Mariam|last2 = Ghani|url-access = subscription}}</ref> It serves as a record of the United States' post-9/11 detention of immigrants and the American public's subsequent reaction to it. The project has grown and evolved over time, leading to a short film titled ''How Do You See the Disappeared?'' as well as a web project. Other materials include transcripts, scraps of video, and radio clips.<ref name="childhood" />
Additionally, Ghani has made multiple film projects. In 2013, she made ''Like Water From a Stone'', a project Ghani filmed in Stavanger, Norway about the transformation the country underwent with the discovery of oil in 1969. In 2016, she made ''The City & the City'', a short film produced in St. Louis, Missouri looking at the social upheaval resulting from institutionalized inequity in the United States.<ref name="Biography" /> Other films, like ''The Trespassers'', shown at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in 2014, seek to examine the problems inherent in translating languages.<ref>{{Cite news|title = How L.A.'s Islamic art shows might expand our 'Middle East' vision|url = http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-islamic-arts-initiative-diversity-20140813-column.html#page=1|newspaper = Los Angeles Times|access-date = 2015-08-01|issn = 0458-3035|last = Miranda|first = Carolina A.|date = 16 August 2014}}</ref>
In addition to her visual art works, Ghani works as a journalist, specifically writing and lecturing on issues affecting the Afghan diaspora.<ref name="cv" /> Additionally, she is a member of the Gulf Labor Working Group, an advocacy group for workers building museums in Abu Dhabi.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practices in North Africa and the Middle East|publisher = I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd.|year = 2014|isbn = 9781784530358|location = London|pages = 346–347}}</ref> She is also an archivist who has worked to digitize and re-image works produced by Afghan state filmmakers from 1978–1991 during the country's Communist period.<ref name="childhood" /> Ghani's feature-length film ''What We Left Unfinished'' is a documentary of these incomplete Afghan films; in a 2021 interview with ''Art Forum'', Ghani described the film as a reflection on Afghanistan's unsettled Communist period which bore unfinished artworks and unfinished political movements.<ref>{{Cite web |date=22 September 2021 |title=Mariam Ghani on Afghanistan's unfinished histories |url=https://www.artforum.com/interviews/mariam-ghani-on-afghanistan-s-unfinished-histories-86692 |access-date=2021-09-28 |website=www.artforum.com |language=en-US}}</ref> Additionally, she commented that Radio Television Afghanistan has an "amazingly rich archive of audiovisual material deserving of wider attention."<ref>{{Cite web|title = The First Daughter of Afghanistan-Mariam Ghani|url = http://blogs.voanews.com/durand/2014/10/31/the-first-daughter-of-afghanistan-mariam-ghani/|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141104013157/http://blogs.voanews.com/durand/2014/10/31/the-first-daughter-of-afghanistan-mariam-ghani/|url-status = dead|archive-date = November 4, 2014|website = Across the Durand|access-date = 31 July 2015|publisher = Voice of America|date = 31 October 2014|last = Mohammad|first = Niala}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{IMDb name|id=3575935|name=Mariam Ghani}} {{Feminism}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghani, Mariam}} Category:1978 births Category:Living people Category:American feminists Category:Afghan feminists Category:New York University alumni Category:Afghan photographers Category:Women photographers Category:Afghan political artists Category:Filmmakers from New York (state) Category:American people of Afghan descent Category:American people of Lebanese descent Category:American people of Pashtun descent Category:Artists from Brooklyn Category:School of Visual Arts alumni Category:Bennington College faculty Category:Children of presidents Category:Afghan people of Lebanese descent