About the Artist

Zia Forogh

Zia Forogh (born 1984, Ghazni, Afghanistan) is a Hazara visual artist, singer, musician, painter, and activist whose work explores the intersection of beauty and suffering — flowers and ashes. His art is deeply personal, shaped by lived experience of systemic discrimination, war, and displacement.

Forogh earned a Bachelor's degree in Painting from the University of Herat (2010) and a Master's in Visual and Performing Arts from Kabul University (2020). He taught fine arts at the Kabul Institute of Fine Arts for a decade while also performing as a traditional Dambura musician and singer at festivals across Afghanistan and Europe.

In 2014, Forogh and his wife founded Daira-e-Khiyal Gallery in Kabul, creating a vital space for young Afghan artists to learn painting, calligraphy, and music. After the Taliban takeover, he was forced to flee Afghanistan and is now an Artists at Risk (AR) resident in Berlin, Germany, where he continues to create and teach.

His work has been exhibited internationally — from Kabul and Herat to Tehran, Berlin, and the United States. Through both his visual art and his Dambura music, Forogh amplifies the voices of the Hazara people and advocates for human rights, freedom of expression, and cultural preservation.