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Perth, |
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Free from the Taliban, Medhi's talent can soar
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"Art is my life, I don't want to go back to Afghanistan," he said. "I hope I can bring my family out to Australia, especially my brother, who taught me to sculpt, art is his life, too." Eighteen-year-old Medhi, who escaped from Afghanistan two yearts ago and holds a holds a temporary protection visa (TPV), has been commissioned to sculpt a stone eagle for federal Liberal Moore MP Mal Washer. The commission, about three months' work, has come as national debate heats up about repatriating TPV holders. For Medhi, it could be a ticket to permanent residency and Australian citizenship if he can prove he has a unique skill to offer Australia before his visa expires in October 2004. Mr Washer has commissioned Medhi to sculpt a 1.5m by 1m eagle and 2m stand out of Donnybrook stone for his Aquila winery, near Wanneroo. Medhi learnt his craft from his brother, 27-year-old Abbas, and other members of his family in Kabul. They often worked for buyers from neighbouring countries like Iran and Pakistan. This week Medhi said he was excited about embarking on a big sculpting project once again. This time he will use Donnybrook sandstone rather than the widely available marble and dahbeed, a local stone from the mountains surrounding Kabul. And this time he will be able to work without fearing for his life. When the ruling Taliban forces forbade many forms of artwork Medhi began panel-beating cars because it was the closest permissible occupation to sculpting. He said the Taliban had murdered his brother for producing artwork for different ethnic groups and organisations. "He wasn't involved in politics, just producing art," Medhi said. Medhi fled Afghanistan after surviving a bomb blast while being forced to carry weapons for the Taliban. After this brush with death his father persuaded him to leave his homeland and paid a smuggler to get him to Karachi in Pakistan. He then flew from Karachi to Malaysia and Indonesia using a fake passport and illegal documents. "When I got to Indonesia it was the first time I had ever seen the sea," Medhi said. Medhi and 240 Afghanis and Iraqis crammed aboard a small Indonesian fishing boat bound for Christmas Island. "We were told by the smugglers to throw our passports and papers overboard," he said. "I don't know how much my father paid the people smugglers, but others on the boat said they'd paid between $8000 and $9000 US to come to Australia." After being picked up by police in Christmas Island harbour, Medhi, then 16, spent five months in Curtin Detention Centre in Derby. "I didn't know what was going to happen," he said. "I thought that after I arrived in Australia and had a medical check I would be set free. "The smugglers said this would happen. They just didn't want us to show the false passports to Australian authorities." In detention, Medhi was too depressed for much of the time to produce any artwork. "In the last month, I asked for some pencils and they gave me a biro and a couple of coloured pens," he said. "They gave us a number and we had to wear an ID card." He said the oppressive heat, the lack of civilisation around them, and a high turnover rate of teachers at Curtin had been depressing. "I wouldn't have come to Australia if I'd known I would have to stay in a detention centre," he said. "I was lucky to stay only five months though." He said he'd learnt most of his English from Iraqi and Afghani detainees who had been at Curtin for up to three years. Medhi hadn't even seen a Latin alphabet before he arrived in Australia. He said he'd been allowed to leave Curtin once he proved to an interpreter that he was Afghani, spoke Dari and came from Kabul. Dari-speaking Australian authorities queried him about the geography of Kabul, taxi fees and the dialects he spoke. He was granted a three-year TPV and came to Perth 18 months ago. Having lost contact with all his family, including his nine brothers and one sister, Medhi is unsure whether they are still alive. "Our house was near the airfield, so I don't know," he said. Red Cross records from refugee camps on the border of Iran and Pakistan do not list any family members as dead, so he still holds hope of finding them and bringing them to Australia. "Maybe the regime has changed in Afghanistan, but I fear that if I return, the Taliban would still not allow me to do my work," he said. After six months of culture shock and adjusting to the English language at Balga Senior High School, Medhi met Dunia Russell, who has encouraged him and helped him get on his feet. Dunia said when she first saw Medhi's painting of a mother and child, painted because he missed his family, she was stunned. "For a Muslim boy who had been through all that horror to be painting a scene out of the European Renaissance blew me away," Dunia said. "I am determined Australia is not going to lose a gift like Medhi. "He goes into a trance-like state when he is chiselling and envisaging the form he wants to make from the stone," said Dunia. "When I look at a rock I can see something inside," he said. While his favourite stone is marble, the high cost of marble in Australia - six times the price of marble Kabul - has forced him to work with sandstone. Keith Sinclair, a former Arts WA board member, said he hoped Medhi could successfully apply for state government funding to hold an exhibition this year.
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