An Afghan girl calmly milks a giant yak: Daniel Malikyar’s best photograph

‘In the Pamir Mountains, there’s salted yak milk every morning for breakfast. You stay warm at night on the floor in the yurt burning yak dung in the furnace’

My parents and grandparents migrated to the US from Afghanistan in 1979, just a few weeks before the Soviets invaded. I grew up in Los Angeles, but would visit my grandfather in Virginia once a year. He would always make photographs and film little interviews. It was his enthusiasm in capturing moments of our everyday lives that sparked my interest in documenting the world around me.

I was six when 9/11 happened. From that point on, the domestic and global perception of my motherland was always driven by the negative connotations drawn from the headlines – terrorism, war, images of sandstorms, guns and desperation. But at home in LA, I would see the beauty of our culture, the food, the handicrafts, the art we had on the walls, the music and poetry, and the stories, artifacts and photographs my parents had from their time in Afghanistan. Their photographs from the 60s and 70s showcased the country at a time when it flourished. One day, I told myself, I’m going to make a project that shows the world another side of this incomplete story.
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