Welcome to the Art Angle, a podcast from Artnet News that delves into the places where the art world meets the real world, bringing each week’s biggest story down to earth. Join us every week for an in-depth look at what matters most in museums, the art market, and much more, with input from our own writers and editors, as well as artists, curators, and other top experts in the field.

In August 2021, the world watched in horror as U.S. troops withdrew and the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan. Over 600,000 refugees have fled the country since last January, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.

Among the many groups threatened by the Taliban’s rule are artists, with the fundamentalist government viewing freedom of artistic expression as a threat to the Islamic faith. Fearing for their lives, some artists have felt compelled to destroy or censor their own work, or to seek asylum outside Afghanistan’s borders.

For curators Barbara Pollack and Anne Verhallen, the crisis provided an opportunity for their arts organization, Art at a Time Like This, to help raise awareness about the plight of Afghan artists. The two had started the platform, which stages both online and in-person exhibitions, in March 2020 in response to the onset of Covid-19. To organize the virtual show “Before Silence: Afghan Artists In Exile,” the two partnered with Artists at Risk Connection to bring together the work of nine Afghan artists now dispersed around the world.

To learn more about the situation faced by these brave creatives, Artnet News senior writer Sarah Cascone spoke with Julie Trebault, director of the Artists at Risk Connection at PEN America; Alexandra Xanthaki, the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights; and Shamayel Shalizi, an Afghan artist currently living in Berlin.

Listen to other episodes:

‘Visibility Means Survival’: How the Art World in Ukraine’s Besieged Capital Is Fighting Back

‘You Tell Me Your First Five Exhibits, I Can Tell You 20 Years Into the Future How Much Your Work Will Be Selling’: How To Become a Successful NFT Artist

The Art Angle Podcast: Marina Abramović on How Her Artistic Method Can Change Your Life

The Art Angle Podcast: Jennie C. Jones on Why You Should Listen to Her Paintings

The Art Angle Podcast: The Black Art Visionary Who Secretly Built the Morgan Library

The Art Angle Podcast: How Lucy Lippard and a Band of Artists Fought U.S. Imperialism

The Art Angle Podcast: Art, Lies, and Instagram: How Catfishing ‘Collectors’ Duped the Art World

The Art Angle Podcast: The Nazis Stole Her Family’s Art. Here’s How She Got It Back

The Art Angle Podcast: How Lucy Lippard and a Band of Artists Fought U.S. Imperialism