deBuren

© Pieter-Jan De Pue

It is difficult not to be silenced at the sight of the wonderful portraits Pieter-Jan de Pue brought back with him from his eventful journey through the Afghan mountains. Without lapsing into exoticism, he portrays the diversity of a country that is often defined in terms of such clichés as women dressed in blue burkas, bearded men smoking opium, and NATO soldiers on patrol.
Last year the young photographer Pieter-Jan De Pue (b. 1982) graduated as a film director from the RITS in Brussels. In the summer of 2007 he went to Afghanistan for four months, where he made a photo-reportage for the International Red Cross, Demining, Solidarité Afghanistan Belgique and the Dutch Committee for Afghanistan.

Together with his interpreter Gholam Hasan, De Pue travelled on foot and on horseback through the Afghan Hindu Kush mountains by way of the Panshir Valley, to the Warghan Corridor and Pamir, and on to China. The route included the ancient Silk Road which Marco Polo used on his explorative expeditions to China. Once they had arrived on the 'roof of the world' - the place where the three countries Pakistan, Tadzikistan and China meet, they crossed the border into China where they were arrested by Chinese border troops. Following a brief sojourn in a Chinese army camp, Pieter-Jan and Hasan were incarcerated for a month in Taxorghan prison in the extreme north-east of China. Hasan was suspected of being a member of the Taliban and an opium smuggler and Pieter-Jan as a spy for the American army or the ISAF armed forces in Afghanistan.
Following a month's imprisonment and innumerable interrogations they were released once again in the mountains of Pamir on the border of Afghanistan. Their freedom was short-lived however, as before long they were captured by a Kyrgyzic community who thought they were members of Al Qaeda.

Pieter-Jan de Pue's visual journey forms an exhibition at deBuren. The weeks of travelling through an area inhabited by Kyrgyzic nomads, encounters with local warlords, offers of hospitality from opium traffickers and people smuggling precious stones, all in a region coloured red by poppies and bristling with arms for the perpetuation of the war in Southern Afghanistan.