Simon Norfolk
Yards supplying construction materials in Nawabadi Guzargah district of Kabul, overlooked by American-controlled electronic eavesdropping equipment on the summit of Kohe Asmai.

Yards supplying construction materials in Nawabadi Guzargah district of Kabul, overlooked by American-controlled electronic eavesdropping equipment on the summit of Kohe Asmai.

© Simon Norfolk / Gallery Luisotti

Yards supplying construction materials in Nawabadi Guzargah district of Kabul, overlooked by American-controlled electronic eavesdropping equipment on the summit of Kohe Asmai.
Yards supplying construction materials in Nawabadi Guzargah district of Kabul, overlooked by American-controlled electronic eavesdropping equipment on the summit of Kohe Asmai.
ArtistBritish, born Nigeria, 1963
CultureBritish
Titles
  • Yards supplying construction materials in Nawabadi Guzargah district of Kabul, overlooked by American-controlled electronic eavesdropping equipment on the summit of Kohe Asmai.
  • from the portfolio Burke + Norfolk: Photographs from the War in Afghanistan
Date2010–2011, printed September 2011
Place depictedKabul, Afghanistan
MediumChromogenic print
DimensionsImage: 14 3/8 × 19 1/8 in. (36.5 × 48.6 cm)
 Sheet: 15 x 20 in. (38.1 x 50.8 cm)
Credit LineGift of Morris Weiner
Object number2016.224.38
Not on view

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Department
Photography
Object Type
ProvenanceThe artist; [Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica, California]; purchased by Morris Weiner, Houston, 2012; given to MFAH, 2016.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Stamped in black ink, verso, lower right: Burke + Norfolk // Photographs from the war in Afghanistan // by John Burke and Simon Norfolk // Printed by Simon Norfolk, September 2011 // An archival, digital, chromogenic print on Fujicolor Crystal Archive // Photograph by Simon Norfolk [signed in pencil over a stamped underline] // One of 104 prints in a Burke + Norfolk portfolio special edition // Edition number 1 of eight [1 is handwritten in pencil over a stamped underline]
Norfolk prints are signed and numbered on verso lower right, within artist's stamp

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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A Shia cemetery on the flanks of Kohe Asmai.
Simon Norfolk
A Shia cemetery on the flanks of Kohe Asmai.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.43
The whole eastern side of Kabul, for miles along both sides of Jalalabad Road is one huge logistics yard capable of supplying the foreign military and rapidly growing embassies with everything they might need from a single cup of coffee right through to an entire airstrip.
Simon Norfolk
The whole eastern side of Kabul, for miles along both sides of Jalalabad Road is one huge logistics yard capable of supplying the foreign military and rapidly growing embassies with everything they might need from a single cup of coffee right through to an entire airstrip.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.21
Wasteland at the back of shops used as stabling for draft horses. In the distance is the Bala Hissar citadel, now home to an Afghan Army base and mooring for one of the American blimps that carry electronic surveillance gear and cameras.
Simon Norfolk
Wasteland at the back of shops used as stabling for draft horses. In the distance is the Bala Hissar citadel, now home to an Afghan Army base and mooring for one of the American blimps that carry electronic surveillance gear and cameras.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.10
One of the huge logistics compounds at Camp Leatherneck. A modern, technologized army needs hundreds of thousands of different kinds of objects in order to keep it working. A $100m warplane can be grounded for the want of a $1 part. Supplying these things is a huge drain on an army’s resources and its greatest vulnerability.
Simon Norfolk
One of the huge logistics compounds at Camp Leatherneck. A modern, technologized army needs hundreds of thousands of different kinds of objects in order to keep it working. A $100m warplane can be grounded for the want of a $1 part. Supplying these things is a huge drain on an army’s resources and its greatest vulnerability.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.90
Jawad, who like many Afghans uses just the one name, out playing with an old tyre in the Mikrorayon district of Kabul.
Simon Norfolk
Jawad, who like many Afghans uses just the one name, out playing with an old tyre in the Mikrorayon district of Kabul.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.2
Some of the nonsensical property development taking place in Kabul. This district of the city, Karte Char Chateh, is remembered by Kabulis as that part of the bazaar which was burned by the British in 1842 as collective punishment for the killing of the British Envoy. The fires still burned when the British retreated two days later.
Simon Norfolk
Some of the nonsensical property development taking place in Kabul. This district of the city, Karte Char Chateh, is remembered by Kabulis as that part of the bazaar which was burned by the British in 1842 as collective punishment for the killing of the British Envoy. The fires still burned when the British retreated two days later.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.7
The districts of Wazir Akbar Khan and Sherpur, home to all the NGOs and contractors, occupy the site of the former British fortress from the Second Anglo-Afghan War, ‘the Cantonment’. Glitzy, kitschy ‘poppy-palaces’, flung up in a hectic property boom after the land was illegally re-possessed from squatters, can command rents of $20,000 per week when leased out to Internationals.
Simon Norfolk
The districts of Wazir Akbar Khan and Sherpur, home to all the NGOs and contractors, occupy the site of the former British fortress from the Second Anglo-Afghan War, ‘the Cantonment’. Glitzy, kitschy ‘poppy-palaces’, flung up in a hectic property boom after the land was illegally re-possessed from squatters, can command rents of $20,000 per week when leased out to Internationals.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.22
The former home of Jangalak Industries, a metalworking factory that once had a workforce of 1,800 but was wrecked during the civil war in the 1990s. It is now used as a massive storage yard for scrap metal. This area is all discarded hospital beds and school desks.
Simon Norfolk
The former home of Jangalak Industries, a metalworking factory that once had a workforce of 1,800 but was wrecked during the civil war in the 1990s. It is now used as a massive storage yard for scrap metal. This area is all discarded hospital beds and school desks.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.9
On the very northern edge of Kabul. A shipping container is re-purposed as home to men working in a yard casting concrete blast walls. Each section, when sold to foreign embassies or the military, fetches $1000 per piece.
Simon Norfolk
On the very northern edge of Kabul. A shipping container is re-purposed as home to men working in a yard casting concrete blast walls. Each section, when sold to foreign embassies or the military, fetches $1000 per piece.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.15
A storage yard at Kandahar Airfield looking out beyond the wire, back into ‘Afghanistan’.
Simon Norfolk
A storage yard at Kandahar Airfield looking out beyond the wire, back into ‘Afghanistan’.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.87
A storage yard at Kandahar Airfield looking out beyond the wire, back into ‘Afghanistan’.
Simon Norfolk
A storage yard at Kandahar Airfield looking out beyond the wire, back into ‘Afghanistan’.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.99
The peripheries of the city of Kabul, especially to the north and east are endless building sites. Since most of the documentation concerning land title was lost during the war, much of this speculative and illegal construction is concerned more with establishing undisputable ‘facts on the ground’. Apartments and shops are, almost exclusively, unoccupied.
Simon Norfolk
The peripheries of the city of Kabul, especially to the north and east are endless building sites. Since most of the documentation concerning land title was lost during the war, much of this speculative and illegal construction is concerned more with establishing undisputable ‘facts on the ground’. Apartments and shops are, almost exclusively, unoccupied.
2010–2011, printed September 2011
Chromogenic print
2016.224.24