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Malina Suliman, a graffiti artist, metalworker, and painter, was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1990. As a child, she and her family were forced to flee her home province to live in Kandahar, Afghan. Her work is considered to challenge traditional Muslim culture like the burqa. According to Suliman, "The burqa is a way of controlling, but in the name of respect. Every culture or religion gives a different name for the burqa. It is honor, culture, and religion. Really, it just controls the woman and keeps her inside." Malina's work has gained the attention of the Taliban and traditional Muslims, resulting in having received threats from the Taliban towards Suliman and her family. Not only does Malina worry about the Taliban, but her family who disagrees with her decision to create art. It was seen as un-Islamic and Suliman's parents were embarrassed and even locked Malina in the house for nearly a year, which had the opposite effect they were hoping for. Malina claimed that, “Today, whatever I am doing for art, it’s all because of that one year in which I was staying in a home.”

Education

Suliman studied Realism Art in Pakistan, one of the most conservative cities, without the knowledge of her father who disagreed with her choice. She eventually received her bachelors at the Art Council Karachi of Fine Arts but her studies were cut short when her parents asked her to return home. She was kept at home for year but she continued to spray graffiti once she left. In 2013, an attack on her father pushed the family to move to Mumbia, India. There, she studied at the Sir J.J School of Art. In 2014, She relocated to the Netherlands where she started her M.A at the Dutch Art Institute.

Career

Suliman began writing graffiti after visiting an art exhibit held by her sister's husband. Her writing the graffiti attracted comments from passerbys. She would also get assaulted by people throwing rocks, who followed her if she tried to relocate. The Taliban was one the most vocal against her work. They have said that Suliman's work is idol-worshipping and anti-Islam. Conservative Muslims and the Taliban have threatened and acted violently toward Suliman and Suliman's family. Once Suliman started holding her exhibits she received threats warning her not to attend her own exhibits. In one exhibit in Kandahar, she attracted the attention of the Governor of Kandahar, Tooryalai Wesa, who praised her work hoping that "more women would do the same." Suliman's art earned her an invitation to President Hamid Karzai's palace to showcase her work in a private viewing. She also joined a local art group, the Kandahar Fine Arts Association, to bring an art scene that would be alive in her deeply conservative hometown. The group was all male and relatively small but has gained many female artists.

In 2015, Malina participated in a painting and sculpture exhibition at the French Cultural Center in Kabul. A movie released in 2016 called 'Tasting the Moon' featuring Malina Suliman, Shamsia Hassani, and Nabila Horakhsh. The movie is about First Generation of Afghan Female Contemporary Artists and contains a trilogy of impressionistic dream sequences inspired by re-occurring metaphors in each artist's work.

Art

Suliman's art seeks to advocate for women's rights in Afghanistan. Her most famous graffiti art is the image of a skeleton wearing a blue burqa. To Malina, it means a lack of identity for women in Afghanistan, inequality because women are treated as second class citizens in Afghan, and oppression for the women who are killed for asking for rights. Suliman's work of a hanged woman captures this. One of her more morbid and darker works includes a gruesome scene in the aftermath of a suicide bombing. Malina depicts the reaction of people in a statement during an interview. “Many people had never seen an art installation... Some were offended and others were hurt because they’d experienced it before." Suliman's work is very personal as well. She experienced a suicide bombing at an exhibit but made it out safely without any injuries. She also faces the reality of being a controversial figure in Afghanistan, knowing that she could be killed for her art. Not only does her art covers the political and war scene of Afghan but she also covers her life and parents in an artwork titled "Today's Life". This painting depicts a fetus in a womb that is suspended from tree being pulled in different directions. For Malina, her fate had already been decided before she was born. “Before a child is born, the parents are already thinking that a son can support them and a daughter can be married off to a wealthy suitor. They don’t stop to think what the child may want." In May 2015, Suliman's work was the focus of a solo exhibition at the Art Represent gallery in Bethnal Green, London. The show, entitled 'Beyond the Veil: A Decontextualization', saw the installation of a number of burqas, each inscribed with the wishes and aspirations of Afghan citizens in a traditional form of calligraphy.