ArtLord free pop-up

BRATTLEBORO - This past August downtown Brattleboro was the site of 17 temporary murals made by local members of the Afghan-led artist collective known as the ArtLords. Created with support from the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, in collaboration with the Providence-based public-art group Tape Art, the murals paid homage to ArtLords murals in Kabul that were destroyed by the Taliban in 2021. The two-week exhibit garnered coverage from Vermont Public, NBC10 Boston, NBC5, and WCAX3.
The five ArtLords members who reside in Brattleboro - Marwa, Negina, Meetra, Zuhra, and Abdullah - will join other local Afghan creators for a free one-day pop-up exhibition at BMAC on Monday, October 17, from 2 to 8 pm. The ArtLords will arrive at the museum at 2 pm to begin creating a large mural-style painting on panels in the Wolf Kahn & Emily Mason Gallery. The public is invited to view the mural in progress. The exhibit will also feature work by other Afghan refugees who recently arrived in Brattleboro, including handmade kites, robots built by a robotics expert, and garments made by a sewing group.
There will be a celebration of the one-day exhibit from 5 to 7 pm, with remarks by the artists and makers at 6 pm. The exhibit is presented in collaboration with the Multicultural Community Center of Southern Vermont, an arm of the Ethiopian Community Development Council, the federal resettlement agency for southern Vermont.
ArtLords was established in 2014 as a global grassroots movement of “artivists” motivated by the desire to pave the way for social transformation and behavioral change through employing the soft power of art and culture as a nonintrusive approach. ArtLords realized the opportunity for converting the negative psychological impact of blast walls on the people of Kabul into a positive visual experience through murals. ArtLords’ work has been celebrated by artists and leaders around the world and has been displayed at the United Nations