Sandra Calligaro grew up in the suburbs of Paris in a loving family. From a father passionate about beautiful Italian motorcycles, she has kept a taste for adventure. His mother, for her part, passed on to him the social fiber and the taste for the visual arts. This curious mixture, served by an undeniable talent and audacity, led her one day to Afghanistan, a bruised country which she has since testified to on a daily basis, with modesty and elegance.
“ I am loyal and faithful smiles Sandra Calligaro at a table in La Caravane, a bar in the tenth arrondissement. Twenty years ago, she worked there three or four evenings a week to pay for her studies. It is here that she says she learned her trade, by observing the clients that she happened to photograph during her service. As a teenager, she dreamed of being a designer, but a year of preparation for art schools revealed another vocation, that of war photographer. ” Journalism schools didn’t appeal to me, so I went to Paris VIII, for the Photography and Multimedia course. »
She presents her master’s thesis in the small room at the back, a stone’s throw from the counter. At that time, she photographed the world of the night and the students were called upon to support outside the walls, in a place that made sense to them. She spends her free time in the lab, shooting black and white silver images that she takes with an old Minolta stolen from her parents.
To become someone
Among the regular customers, there is the great reporter Paul Comiti, who likes to tell his exploits. One day, he announces to her that he is leaving for Afghanistan. ” You take me in your luggage » she throws in the base. ” No, but it’s a good place to start. Stung to the quick, she resigns, buys a digital device and takes the plane on March 22, 2007. I borrowed 1500€ from my parents. In fact I never gave them back. »
She has in her pocket three telephone numbers given by Paul Comiti, those of a taxi, a restaurant and a hotel. She ends up meeting him almost two months later and he hands her a perch: a journalist from Paris Match is looking for a photographer. His first published image is a portrait of Hamid Karzai, the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The magazine comes out on May 16, the day she returns to Paris, and she buys it in the airport shop.
“ Afghanistan made me become someone. I owe him a lot to this country. she continues. She returns there at the end of the year, this time with the idea of a long-term subject on drug users, which she will never publish. But in this country diametrically opposed to everything she had known until then, she felt like she was in a bubble, managed to work, to network. And when she returns to the Caravan, it is to do her first exhibition there. Fifteen years later, one of the images still hangs on the wall, like a promise kept.
Living in Kabul
On her third trip, in the spring of 2008, she chained orders. The following year she met her ex-companion there, also French. She learned Dari, moved to Kabul, where she lived until 2017. During this decade, she produced documentary work on the middle classes of the Afghan capital, exceptional both in its documentary richness and in the quality of its glance. Many of his images, which have the majesty of classic paintings, will find their place in a book, Afghan dream.
Back in Paris – still in the tenth arrondissement – she continues to go regularly to Kabul, for three weeks, a month, sometimes more. “ Every time I tell myself that this is the last trip, that I have to move on. But then, she needs to dwell on things, to talk with people before photographing them. For her, it is the emotions and not the facts that lead to the image. ” By spending time in France, I begin to see subjects. I also work elsewhere. But there will be no second Afghanistan. »
Two or three times she was afraid. When a bomb exploded a stone’s throw from her home in 2017, she went out to photograph the rescue operation. But a rumor is circulating that raises fears of an additional attack. Everyone disperses, takes shelter as best they can. Hands over her eyes, she waits for the explosion that will not come. Another time, in 2019, leaving a village with a journalist reporting for Arte, she fears being kidnapped by the Taliban. The driver manages to put their vigilance to sleep. The militiamen do not see his camera.
Show daily life under the Taliban regime
Last year, like so many others, she admits to having been flabbergasted by the speed of the Taliban conquest. The threat had been there since the massive withdrawal of NATO forces in 2014, but here everyone had gotten used to it. At the beginning of August 2021, she is still in Kabul, for the 20th anniversary of the American intervention. On these days, journalists prepare for the siege of the capital. Following a visa problem, she left the premises on August 12, thinking of returning immediately. Three days later, as the Taliban took control of the city without a fight, she was stranded at Istanbul airport.
She leaves for Paris. For ten days, she does not sleep, makes lists of people to expatriate. ” Didn’t cover the fall of Kabul, but managed to get some fixers out. She returns to the scene at the end of August. Her recent photos, like those that preceded them, are not the work of the war photographer she imagined becoming a student, but of an inspired documentary filmmaker at the time of the dictatorship. She will continue this work this summer.
” This country is like a love story, sometimes you’re tired, you’re fed up, but ultimately not. I didn’t want to become a specialist, I’m not a fan of the history of this country. It’s just that he allowed me to build a life. And then Afghanistan is always a great adventure! she concludes with a laugh.
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