Shamsia Hassani, 24, is probably the first serious graffiti artist of Kabul. Her paintings can be found covering walls in industrial parks featuring women in burqas with hips and sharp shoulders or fish “trapped and silent in their watery universe” (Art in the Streets of Kabul). Hassani finds that art in exhibitions will only meet the eye of those who are educated, but if you “do graffiti all over the city, there will be nobody who doesn’t know about art.” Some of her pieces are in response to the violence that has devoured the city, and her messages are even reflected by the very location she is forced to work in. Being an artist in the streets of a city at war is difficult enough. Women face even further harassment, so Hassani works in industrial parks and abandoned buildings, such as the cultural center which is the site of her painting “Beyond the burqa.” To avoid the problems of the street, Hassani also takes pictures of the streets, prints them out, and does “graffiti” on them with a paintbrush. For reasons of security or custom, Shamsia lives with her parents and works under cover along with her male friend and fellow artist Qasem Foushanji. While Shamsia’s art tackles women’s grievances, her fellow artist Qasem Foushanji’s work touches upon social aspects of Afghan life and showing what is hidden beneath it (like women being beaten inhumanely). Most importantly, Shamisa's work evokes the sense of disappointment felt by Afghan women upon being treated like second-class citizens by the patriarchal society. “That’s why I don’t step outside to work and do whatever I could within the confines of my house. I only move out to take pictures of sites that I like. As soon as this routine is finished, I return to my safe corridor to start giving them proper gloss with the help of Photoshop tools on a computer device. If it’s not feasible, then I get print outs of the street and work upon them as graffiti using a paintbrush. undefined

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