X is an Afghan photographer who was born in Kandahar and moved to Kabul when she was six years old. After the Taliban came to power in 1996 and prohibited the education of women, teenage X secretly attended an underground school with 300 other girls. At the age of thirteen she was assaulted in the street for not wearing a burqa. In 2004 X became the first female Afghan female photo journalist to work for an international news agency, Agence-France Presse (AFG).

X has photographed Afghan women: “The theme is important to me because I’m a woman myself.” Her gender has given her access to communities of women and their daily lives. “I want to show a bigger picture of the lives of Afghan women, not just that we have problems”, X says, “and it doesn’t mean that we don’t have many problems, but I want to portray ordinary life.”

X’s photographs have been published by e.g. The Sunday Times, ABC-TV, Le Monde 2, Gent magazine, CanWest News, Canadian Geographic, Polka Magazine, Le-temps magazine, New Statement, Guardian, Deutsche-Welle and Save the Children. X also belongs to the recently founded Afghan Photography Network, which aims to offer an inside view at Afghanistan as seen by Afghan photographers.