Zahra Adham is hoping to give women in Afghanistan and other developing nations the tools to change their situation through the Ali X Project, a project dedicated to encouraging social change through the creative processes of photography. Adham, a 43-year-old woman from Flushing, Queens, developed the project with Sasha Shama, an advertising executive based in London. The two started photographing portraits of women in April 2015, and established a working calendar for that purpose in December 2016.
Adham has travelled to rural regions of Afghanistan, Siberia, Morocco, Afghanistan and China to capture portraits of women who, in many cases, are the first in their families to receive an education. She has photographed pregnant women, working women, the elderly, former prison inmates, and villagers whose income is provided by the Ali X Project.
Her photographs were exhibited at the Arts in the Forum in New York, following a press preview and coffee presentation at the House of Hybris, a corporate and advertising agency on the Lower East Side. People have said the collection of photographs is inspirational and life-affirming.
Adham said the concepts behind the project are to inspire young women in impoverished villages around the world to love themselves, stop hiding in the shadows, and to take part in a social experiment where one hundred percent of the proceeds go to an NGO to help women.
The 33-year-old Shama said she was inspired to continue the project after reading Yasmine Ayubi’s 2016 TEDx Talk about her plans to photograph Afghan women at the time of the Change One Family program that Shama works with.
Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images. Yuri Amon, 25, looks at a photographer in the Ali X Project at the Arts in the Forum in New York. Yuri Amon, 25, looks at a photographer in the Ali X Project at the Arts in the Forum in New York. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images. Frida Borojeva, 32, stands behind the photographer in the Ali X Project at the Arts in the Forum in New York. Frida Borojeva, 32, stands behind the photographer in the Ali X Project at the Arts in the Forum in New York. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images. Natasha Viljakova, 25, looks at a photographer in the Ali X Project at the Arts in the Forum in New York. Natasha Viljakova, 25, looks at a photographer in the Ali X Project at the Arts in the Forum in New York. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images.
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