WISC, IFAM, Global SF present RANGINA HAMIDI

On September 9, 2022, WISC, in collaboration with IFAM and Global Santa Fe, presents a conversation with Rangina Hamidi, founder of Kandahar Treasure (kandahartreasure.com), at Acequia Madre House, following an all-day pop-up sale with Kandahar Treasure at the IFAM Center.

Pop-Up Sale: 10AM-3:30PM

IFAM Center

620 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe, NM 87505

Conversation with WISC: 4:30-6:00PM

Acequia Madre House

614 Acequia Madre, Santa Fe, NM 87505

Rangina Hamidi, former Education Minister in the Afghan government, founded Kandahar Treasure in 2008. Kandahar Treasure is a cooperative of embroiderers which promotes a unique and traditional art form to create income sources for women in Afghanistan. The traditional fine needle embroidery called “khamak” is a trademark of Kandahar women. The cooperative worked hard to revive this ancient art and the traditional designs that were lost during decades of conflict in Afghanistan. The organization states its goal “is to give life and value to the art–carrying with it not only history but tradition and the voice of women…In highly illiterate societies such as Kandahar, Afghanistan, this art form substitutes women’s expression that would otherwise be written in poems or stories. Kandahari khamak is the story of the women of Kandahar–creating beauty and peace in the midst of a very violent and unstable society."

Rangina will speak to the social, political, and economic realities women face today in Afghanistan, as well as the transformative power of the handmade amidst a “region ravaged with war and violence.”