A Forlorn Hope

From 2007 to 2009, the Berlin-based photographer Andreas Rost traveled to Kabul a total of three times at the invitation of the Goethe-Institut and the ifa (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations) to train young men and women as photojournalists at Kabul University. Especially to qualify young women for journalistic and editorial professions.
Andreas Rost also used his stays in Afghanistan to engage with the country photographically. He was supported by Afghans who had been guiding international photographers through the country for years, safe from kidnappings and raids. Under the most difficult conditions, Rost created photographs in which he intuitively approached the situations on the ground. His black-and-white images, which are convincing in their poetry and aesthetic appeal, give us an immediate impression of everyday life in Kabul in those years and also cast a glance at the existing patriarchal-archaic structures.
The book is being published on the occasion of the exhibition project “A Forlorn Hope,” which will kick off in early April 2022 at the Haus am Kleistpark in Berlin and will subsequently be shown in other cities in Germany.