FarhangSara/Silk Road Cultural Initiative

A 9-year program funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and implemented by Aga Khan Cultural Services – Afghanistan (AKCS-A).

The program aims to protect, promote, and preserve Afghanistan’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage by providing seed-grants for small cultural organizations and individual Afghan artists, rehabilitating historic sites that can be potentially used as cultural spaces, and supporting vocational trainings and creative industries.

After discussions and close teamwork, I created a symbol that represents both the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of Afghanistan. The design combines patterns from the Behzad school of miniature painting used on tiles in historic monuments across Afghanistan with a game called Shahidakan that we, our fathers and grandfathers used to play as children.