In 2009, journalist Doug Wissing spent ten weeks in Afghanistan, embedded with the Indiana National Guard Agribusiness Development Team. The troops were attempting to help Afghan farmers in the insurgency-wracked Khost Province to improve their agribusiness and economic productivity.
While filing the stories for WFIU that would become the Cultivating Afghanistan series, Wissing recorded other stories – the kind that can't be told in words.
Capturing Stories Within Stories
"Radio is great for capturing emotions," Wissing explains, "from the anger in an Afghan's voice after his village has been attacked, the tremor in a soldier's voice when he's talking about home, or the banter in a truck when you've just hit a bomb. But we're also very visual. We want to know: what's it look like?"
Wissing fills in these gaps with photos he took during his stints in Afghanistan. "Over here we've got a picture of a Pashtun tribesman," Wissing gestures. "You can just see the courage in his eyes. That's a warrior."
Wissing's photographs are currently on view in the main lobby of Indiana University's Wells Library as part of the exhibition, Indiana in Afghanistan; Afghanistan in Indiana. The show juxtaposes Wissing's photos with Afghistan-related archival material from IU's collection.
Making The Proposal A Reality
When Wissing first proposed the idea of the show to his friend Jim Canary, the Lilly Library rare book conservator went about digging up whatever he could find on campus that linked IU to Afghanistan.
"I just assumed it would be here. I hadn't any idea at the time," Canary confesses. "But like any other subject here, you can just find a wealth of material scattered all across campus."
In fact, at the Lilly Library, Canary discovered antique tourist pamphlets. At the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, he found a trove of Afghani instruments collected by the anthropologist Louis Dupree, whose recordings of indigenous musical performances are housed in the Archives of Traditional Music.
The Hope To Renew A Remote Connection
At the center of the exhibition are photos of IU's longtime president in a fez, and surveying a library at Kabul University. "I don't know when we found out that Herman Wells had gone to Afghanistan in 1966," Canary recalled, "but that really opened things up."
The hope is that this small exhibition, tucked into the library's lobby, will renew the connection between Afghanistan and Indiana University.
"In a place like IU this war can become pretty remote," Wissing says. "So it's also an opportunity to remind folks that this is happening. It's part of our society, it's part of our life, and we need to pay attention to that."
"My hope," Canary explains, "is that someone will see [a photograph] that might trigger something inside, and get a glimmer of understanding beyond what they see on the news."
For More Information...
- Visit WFIU's series, Cultivating Afghanistan.
- Check out Indiana University's Lilly Library.
- See the Mathers Museum of World Cultures.
- Learn about Indiana University's Archives of Traditional Music.
Support for Cultivating Afghanistan comes from The Indiana University Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, Office of International Programs and The Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region.