In Conversation with Mélissa Cornet

Six years ago, Mélissa Cornet was working as a legal researcher at New York University. A lawyer specializing in human rights and gender, Mélissa felt removed from the people she was tasked with researching and advocating for. When a mentor suggested she apply to opportunities in regions she was interested in, a long-nurtured appreciation for Central Asian culture and literature led her to seek positions in Afghanistan. “I got a job in Kabul, and I knew it was perfect,” she said. Mélissa moved in 2018, quickly building a life for herself and fulfilling a dream in the process. Then, in 2021, the Taliban returned to power. Overwhelmed and deeply affected by the world collapsing around her, she began to draw. Sketching became a therapeutic practice, preserving beloved memories and creating a historical record of a turbulent time. Though she now splits her time between Istanbul and Kabul, the memory of her life before the fall endures through her drawings. 

Below, Mélissa speaks with Artijaan about what inspires her sketches, art as advocacy, and how life has transformed over the last two years. This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Mélissa interviewing a widow in Parwan in 2022 to document the impact of the food crisis on women and girls.

When did you begin sketching, and how did it play a role in your life during your time in Afghanistan? 

My first few years in Afghanistan, I was sketching very little. It was after the fall [of Kabul in 2021] that I really started sketching again. That first Christmas, I was in Kabul, and I was pretty depressed. I was living in an apartment tower with very little electricity and no heating because we didn't have a generator. I was far from my family and living in a building full of Taliban. It was really grim and polluted and cold. 

The only good thing about those towers was that they had a beautiful view of Kabul. I think we were on the 17th floor. I was very bored—no more battery in my phone or laptop, no more books to read–and had brought with me this nice handmade paper I had bought in Uzbekistan so I used it to start drawing the view from my window. I think sketching has proved quite therapeutic in the sense that it's allowed me to revisit my memories in Afghanistan and also capture what I was seeing after the fall. And I think for me, it was an interesting way of processing all the changes that I was seeing and working on. 

That’s a beautiful sentiment. What have been people’s reactions to your sketches?  

I had my first exhibition last year, and I found [my drawings to be] an interesting entry point, because when people look at the drawings, they are led to ask questions like, what is she wearing? Why is she wearing this? Why [are these] kids begging in the street? In that sense it creates curiosity in people, and they get interested in Afghanistan. 

The situation is terrible, but I think people get very tired of always hearing about the Taliban's decisions, women's rights violations, and the humanitarian crisis. We cannot relate to the bad headlines and we cannot relate to statistics. If you tell [people] that half of the population is hungry, you can’t really relate. But a sketch showing you this reality, these people, has this important visual element that touches people in a way that data or even writing can’t fully communicate. 

Do you have a sketch that is especially meaningful to you? 

One of my very favorite sketches is of a girls classroom in Ghazni, about three hours southwest of Kabul. It was one of the first schools I visited. Every time I go, I ask them in Dari, What’s your name? What's your favorite topic? What do you want to be when you're older? And they answer: I want to be a teacher, I want to be a nurse, I want to be a doctor, a journalist, an engineer.

I really love these moments. But they’ve become very bitter after the ban on girls’ high schools. Because suddenly, without high school, you can’t go to university. And if you can’t go to university, you can’t become a nurse or a doctor. Visiting the schools is both inspiring, because all the girls I’m meeting are amazing, but it’s also really painful because after grade six they’re just going to have to go back home and all their dreams are effectively impossible right now. 

How have you seen life change since the Taliban’s return to power?

I went back to Afghanistan in November 2021 and at first nothing had visibly changed in the sense that it was not a violent takeover, so there was no destruction, there was no visible sign of change except for the fact that you had the Taliban flags everywhere. Before you had this red, green, and black flag, and now you have this white one. There was also less traffic because of the economic crisis–so many people lost their jobs. But you could really feel the difference the moment you talked to people, in the sense that everyone was depressed, everything was depressing, and the eyes and hearts of people were just so empty. 

As I work on women’s rights, it became increasingly hard morally to make a case for working under the Taliban. We’ve been trying really hard to have a positive impact, but it’s proved so difficult to get any type of wins. It’s been very difficult to see the Afghanistan I used to know before the Taliban versus now. 

Meeting with local leaders to talk about women's access to health care. 2022.

What recommendations would you make for someone who is interested in learning more about Afghan literature and culture? 

For poetry the easiest one is definitely Rumi. He’s interesting because there’s this whole debate around the fact that we don’t really know where he was born, but most accounts say he was born in the region of Balkh, which is in the north of [present day] Afghanistan, while also being claimed by Iranians and by Turkish people. For reading about Afghanistan, an easy but powerful entry point for fiction is Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner is the most famous one, but A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Mountains Echoed are personal favorites of mine, including because women are much more present in these books.

To learn more about the country and understand the impact of the last twenty years, the best book in my opinion is Anand Gopal’s No Good Men Among the Living, which is a page-turner and covers everything needed to understand the country through three powerful and interconnected characters. Finally, I’d recommend the art of young women artists Fatimah Hossaini, Atena Soltani, or Roya Heydari, among others.

❋

Prints of Mélissa’s drawings are available for purchase on our website. 

To connect with Mélissa and view more of her work, visit her website or follow her on X.