Rising Among Ruins, Dancing amid Bullets is a photographic project I have been working on from 2012-2018 in Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan, to bear witness to the consequences of war, namely to the lives of civilians returning to their homes after their cities are liberated, as well as to the daily life of the fighters behind the front lines while emphasizing the role of women in their ranks.
“There’s also another side to war. Those doing the fighting also have to wait, often for many days or weeks, behind the front, before anything happens. Then, later, when the guns fall silent, there’s the strange immobility of the ruins. War is also these moments and these places, away from the noise of battle, where the fighting has stopped, or not yet begun. Before the battles are announced, there is, behind the front, the long wait of those who will have to lead them. Then, once the weapons have been silenced, the silence of the ruins remains. These moments and these places, outside the clash of arms, where one does not fight or not yet, where one does not die or not yet, it ‘s also the war. This is the world Maryam Ashrafi has found herself bearing witness to since first travelling to Kurdistan in 2012,an intermediary world, somewhere between life and death, a space that has pervaded the territory since the beginning of the confrontation between the Kurdish forces and Islamic State in 2014. Through the lens of her camera, she tells the story of communities shaped by the continual presence of guns, damaged by war but nevertheless forging a new collective existence. Alongside the Kurdish women soldiers, the photographer thus also tells the story of the transformation of the condition of women that the Kurdish movement has given rise to thanks to the unprecedented situations brought about by the Syrian civil war. ” Allan Kaval
Author biography
Maryam Ashrafi is a Paris-based Iranian photographer, born in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War. With a deep passion for sociology, she focuses on social and political issues, particularly resistance movements and the enduring consequences of war. For years, she documented social unrest in Paris, covering the mobilization of Kurdish and Iranian diasporas as well as riots sparked by political and social crises. Dedicated to long-term projects, she followed the aftermath of war from Kobanê in Northern Syria to Sinjar in Iraqi Kurdistan (2012–2018), work that led to her first book, Rising Among Ruins, Dancing Amid Bullets, winner of the HIP Award and Lucie Photo Book Prize. Her photography has been exhibited internationally, including at Urban Art Space (USA), the Bayeux Calvados Awards (France), The Guardian (UK), the Tbilisi Photo Festival (Georgia), and in Geneva.
Her documentary Eternal Sentinel—a personal account of surviving an IED explosion and the psychological toll on journalists—has been screened at FIGRA and PriMed (France), the WARM Festival (Sarajevo), the Frontline Club (London), and Stanford University (USA). She is currently developing a long-term project on landmines, with recent work in Sri Lanka as part of the Female Lens project by MAG NGO, and an upcoming touring exhibition shedding light on the lasting impact of landmines and the resilience of affected communities.