WORLD UNSEEN EXHIBITION
‘A Smile in the Rubble’ by Muhammed Muheisen
Muhammed Muheisen captures a moment of joy as children play in a refugee settlement in Pakistan.
WORLD UNSEEN EXHIBITION
Muhammed Muheisen captures a moment of joy as children play in a refugee settlement in Pakistan.
In the centre of this photograph, a young Afghan girl stands in a three-wheeled wooden cart. Wearing a lavender-coloured shalwar kameez (a long shirt with trousers) and violet headscarf, she holds her right hand up towards a pink balloon, floating inches above her head. Her body is angled towards the right of the image, her head is tilted backwards, and her eyes look upwards as she smiles at the balloon.
To the left in the background, a much-younger child, wearing a sweatshirt, looks at the girl in the centre of the image, arms aloft in celebration. Slightly to the right, positioned behind the cart in the foreground, is another cart, ornately painted in different colours. Another girl sits inside it. She wears a dark-coloured headscarf and has her arms tenderly wrapped around a small boy in a maroon hat. They stare at the girl with the balloon, smiling.
In the background, to the right of the frame, a cow grazes, its head and dark horns lowered to the floor. Behind the cow is the tired-looking brick wall of a small building. Another cow stands next to two goats, grazing in the central background. Further left is a wooden door, slightly ajar. And on the far left of the frame, children queue to buy candy at a makeshift grocery store.
The image is dominated by the bleak colours of the brown brick, the dull tones of mud and grass. Yet the children, as they always do, bring colour and light.”