Yellow Submarine to Taliwood: 12/12/21

Writing from Kabul, Gittoes shares his thoughts on how artists might respond to political crises and human tragedies.

Painting by George Gittoes, 2021

This era started with watching people jump to their deaths from the Twin Towers on 9/11 and ended twenty years later, close to 9/11, when desperate Afghans fell from the planes at Kabul Airport. 

We are presently contacting people who lost loved ones who clung to the planes and fell to their deaths.  Our film YELLOW SUBMARINE TO TALIWOOD will start with this and the background to those who clung to the planes and their families. One of those killed was a young dentist. It is hard to imaging what was going through their minds. Did they think they could ride all the way to safety in some other country on the outside of a plane? Not all fell, when the plane landed bodies had to be taken out of the wheel hubs. Please take time to read the article attached, but be warned, it is harrowing. One British pilot observer tries to excuse the action, saying the crew would only be able to see what was in front of the plane, but there were eyes on the plane from the US military and airforce in the control towers and on the tarmac, and there were US helicopters flying close overhead – all in direct communication with the crew. Of course, they knew about the people clinging to the plane.

Since that moment I have been working on drawings with the intention of doing a large painting on my return to the Werri studio. The undercarriage of the plane and those falling from it  is the first work I have happening in the studio. Waqar and Zabi are in contact with the families we will interview when we return to Afghansitan. It is possible that one of the families has recorded and kept the last message sent from their son or father as the plane took off.