Baraye Avaleen Bar: Afghan Women on Tintype

Tintype, a photographic process from the 19th century, is historically rooted in documenting war, including both soldiers and combat zones. Baraye Avaleen Bar turns the lens on a community heavily impacted by militarization, one that’s not often heard or even seen. These eight faces represent the diversity and richness of Afghanistan’s many ethnic groups, honoring the millions impacted by war. Our message: We are more than victims and Afghanistan is more than a battlefield — it is our home.

The story of this exhibit began in March 2022, after Jones first captured Ali on tintype. A tintype is made by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal that is then coated with a dark enamel. This is used as the support for the photographic emulsion: iodized collodion dipped in a silver nitrate solution. The metal sheet, still wet, is exposed in camera to create a one-off photochemical object.

Ali was taken by the ancestral beauty tintype provides, so she went on to look for more tintypes of Afghans. Not only could she find no images of Afghans, but she discovered that the most renowned tintypes were of soldiers who served in Afghanistan. Both artists, focused on women’s safety, were inspired to create a space to pay homage to the forgotten heroes of war: women. Ali cast sisters, mothers, daughters, refugees, immigrants and US-born Afghans alike. Jones created their tintypes on August 5, 2022.

The exhibition is open every day from 8am to midnight, in the Gallery space next to the Lobby.

About

Yeldā Ali is an Afghan artist based in Brooklyn, who weaves storytelling with women’s safety advocacy and Afghan representation.
“These images are an ode to generations of our deserving people — stripped of their rights and rarely celebrated.”

Angela Jones is an Australian artist, who practices the 19th-century photographic process of tintype out of her Brooklyn studio.
“The tintype process allows for slowness, intimacy and presence.”