Mariam Ghani

Mariam Ghani (Pashto/Dari: مریم غنی; born 1978) is an Afghan-American visual artist, photographer, filmmaker and social activist. Biography Mariam Ghani was born in 1978 in Brooklyn, New York, of Afghan and Lebanese descent. Her father, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, was president of Afghanistan. Her mother, Rula Saade, is a Lebanese citizen. Ghani grew up in exile and was unable to travel to Afghanistan until 2002, at age 24. Her family lived in the suburbs of Maryland. Ghani earned her degrees from New York University and the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan in comparative literature and video photography and installation art. Ghani was an Eyebeam resident. She is a member of the Visual Arts Faculty at Bennington College. Work Since 2004, Ghani has been working on a multi-media project entitled “Index of the Disappeared”, with her long-time collaborator Chitra Ganesh. The project is a record of the United States' detention of immigrants post-9/11 and public reaction to the treatment of immigrants. The project has grown and evolved over time, leading to a short film, How Do You See the Disappeared?,and a web project. Some of the other materials are transcripts, some are scraps of video or radio clips. She has presented her exhibits at the Transmediale Berlin (2003), Liverpool (2004), EMAP Seoul (2005), Tate Modern London (2007), the National Gallery Washington (2008), Beijing (2009) and Sharjah (2009, 2011). In addition to the Index, she has made multiple film projects, like Like Water From a Stone a 2013 project Ghani filmed in Stavanger, Norway about the transformation the country underwent with the discovery of oil; or a 2014 short film made in Ferguson, Missouri looking at the social upheaval institutionalised inequity has created in the US. Other films, like The Trespassers, shown in Los Angeles in 2014, examines the problems inherent in translating languages. Ghani sees her use of digital media and technology as a toolkit for creating her art.