What lies behind a smiling face?

Hikmatullah Kharoti’s photography exhibition, “Afghan Faces,” depicts smiling faces — from two boys with impish grins and battered plastic buckets in hand to a girl smiling shyly as she balances a basket on her head. But these images also capture the stories behind the smiles, such as a girl’s sagging shoulders or a certain hesitancy in a child’s eyes.      

Kharoti, an Artist Protection Fund Fellow in residence at the University of Delaware and The Delaware Contemporary museum, photographed these images in August 2021, days and weeks after his home country of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. An initiative of the Institute of International Education, the Artist Protection Fund provides support for artists to work at host institutions in safe countries where they can continue their artwork and plan for their futures.

Many of the children he photographed were displaced. Some were separated from their families to look for economic opportunities, such as the adolescent in a photo captioned: “I am Lost.” Still others were in their own communities, working to help their families — polishing boots, collecting cardboard or, in the case of the boys with buckets, obtaining drinking water from a public spigot.     

“I wanted to capture photos of crisis, but I also wanted to capture the smiles that existed despite the suffering,” Kharoti said. “I wanted to capture the stories of these brave Afghan children.”

Currently on display at The Delaware Contemporary, “Afghan Faces” was exhibited earlier this fall in Perkins Student Center on UD’s Newark campus. 

“Making Hikmatullah’s art accessible in public spaces, both on and off campus, is one of the goals of this residency program,” said Colin Miller, director of Global Arts for UD’s College of Arts and Sciences. “Traditional study abroad programs serve an important role, but so do initiatives like the Artist Protection Fund. Bringing international voices and perspectives to campus promotes collaboration and cross-cultural understanding.”