A group of women in burqas rises from the sea to symbolize cleanliness, while further down a factory wall a bus with no wheels and crammed with passengers is a stark comment on war-torn Kabul's appalling public transport. A new Afghan art collective called Roshd, or “growth”, has brought street art and graffiti to the conservative Muslim nation's capital, starting with a mural on a three meter high wall in an industrial park. Soon they hope to take their creativity and commentary to the dusty city center, where blast walls, scrawled advertisements, political propaganda and armed guards are more usual sights.

一群穿著罩袍的婦女從海上升起，象徵純淨（圖／路透）；再往下走，一家工廠牆壁上，一輛沒有車輪的巴士擠滿了乘客，則是對戰火蹂躪下的喀布爾駭人的公共運輸工具赤裸裸的抨擊（圖／路透）。阿富汗一個名為「成長」的嶄新集體藝術，已給這個保守的穆斯林國家首善之區帶來街頭藝術和塗鴉，這最早出現於一工業園區外牆上3公尺高的壁畫。他們希望可以很快把他們的創意和評論延伸到塵土飛揚的市中心區，在那裡防爆牆、塗鴉小廣告、政治宣傳口號和荷槍實彈的警衛是較常見的景觀。

Using spray paint for the first time, Ommolbanin Shamsia Hassani, 22, who is due to start teaching at Kabul University's fine art faculty, painted the burqa-clad group. “Water is very clean and I want to show the women are clean too,” said Hassani. “It was the first time I was painting a big wall, I have always painted on small canvas ... I have become very tired because it's so big.”

那群身穿罩袍的婦女，出自22歲的哈桑尼之手，這是他使用噴漆的處女作，他即將到喀布爾大學教繪畫藝術。哈桑尼說：「水非常乾淨，我想表現的是：女人也很純淨。這是我第一次在一面大牆上作畫，過去我一直在小畫布上作畫……牆壁實在太大了，我差點累斃了。」

Hassani and the other artists were working with a British graffiti artist who goes by the name Chu, who has been painting on walls for 30 years and has done projects including painting an entire train. He traveled from London for a one-week workshop. “In this very short space of time they have absorbed all the skills necessary to paint something huge,” Chu said. “It's just magical what's been happening before my eyes ... The end result is that they just want to paint more.”

哈桑尼和其他藝術家正和一位朱姓英國塗鴉畫家學習，朱已在牆上作畫30年，還接過大案，包括在一列火車車廂上畫畫。他專程從倫敦到喀布爾開為期一周的工作坊。朱說：「在短短時間內，他們要吸收所有必要的技術，才能畫出這麼大的畫。我眼前所見實在太神奇了……結果，他們欲罷不能，只想畫更多畫。」

Some signed up for the workshop knowing almost nothing about the essence of the art form. “There is one reaction I will never forget and it was a concern that a big painting would be disturbing,” said Chu. “I said, 'that's the point'.” Chu said that he hopes his students continue to paint more graffiti. “The more graffiti the better, Afghanistan will rock.”

一些報名參加工作坊的人，原本對這種藝術形式的本質幾乎一無所知。朱說：「有一個反映我永遠忘不了，那就是他們很擔心，巨大的畫作會令人不安。我告訴他們：『這就是重點。』」他表示希望他的學生繼續不斷塗鴉，「多多益善，讓阿富汗搖滾起來。」

Farid Khurrami, 29, a sculpture artist, painted the bus with no wheels moving past a man firing a gun in a bid to spotlight how bad public transport is in Kabul. “People are suffering very much in Kabul,” he said. “People will be very surprised by this new form of art, it is a better way to communicate with a broader audience.” “My message will be more about the peace and the money which the government is spending more on the military, I want it to be used more on the arts,” he said of his future graffiti plans.

沒有車輪的巴士開過一個正舉槍開火的男子身旁，則是出自29歲的雕塑藝術家庫拉米之手，他試圖聚焦喀布爾公共運輸工具有多糟。他說：「喀布爾民生困苦，人民會對這種新的藝術形式感到驚訝，這是一種跟更廣大的觀眾溝通的更好模式。」他談起未來的塗鴉計畫時說：「我所要傳達的訊息將更著眼於和平及政府耗費太多經費建軍，我希望他們能撥更多錢發展藝術。」

In fact, on walls around Afghanistan's scrappy capital, where million-dollar mansions line rutted roads, anonymous graffiti artists are daubing their disapproving take on the devastating cost of war. Styled after the anonymous British vandal-artist Banksy, Kabul's streetwise stealth stencillers go by the moniker “Talibanksy”, a reference to the Islamist Taliban who have been waging war in Afghanistan for almost nine years.

事實上，在圍繞阿富汗滿目瘡痍的首都城牆內，百萬美元豪宅沿著留下車轍的馬路林立，匿名塗鴉畫家在牆上塗抹上他們對驚人的軍費的不滿。塗鴉風格神似英國匿名塗鴉教父班克西，喀布爾這群街頭隱形塗鴉藝術家自稱「塔利班克西」，暗批伊斯蘭激進的神學士「塔利班」已在阿富汗發動戰爭將近9年。

The street art forms a commentary on the cost in blood and treasure of the war, which has brought 126,000 US and NATO troops to Afghanistan and kills about 2,000 Afghan civilians a year, according to the UN. Black, spray-painted silhouettes of soldiers and dollar signs, poppies, helicopters and tanks, and children running hand-in-hand began appearing in downtown Kabul a few months ago. Some show the shadow of a helmeted soldier holding an assault rifle, inside a red circle with a line through it. Or simply the words: Cost Of War. Financially the war is estimated to cost some 100 million dollars a day.

街頭藝術把矛頭指向戰爭在人命和財富上所付出的慘重代價，至今已有12.6萬美軍和北約部隊投入阿富汗戰爭，據聯合國統計，每年約2000名阿富汗平民死亡。黑色噴漆畫出士兵、美元符號、罌粟、直升機和坦克剪影，及幾個月前開始在喀布爾市中心手牽手跑步的孩童。有些則顯示一個紅色圓圈槓上一條線，圈住一個頭戴鋼盔、手持突擊步槍的士兵身影。或乾脆寫幾個大字：戰爭天價。財政上，戰爭估計每天耗資1億美元。

The people behind the anti-war graffiti call themselves Combat Communications, and claim to be “a small anonymous group of international artists founded last year with the sole aim of advocating / promoting free expression”.

在背後推動反戰塗鴉的這群人以「戰鬥傳聲筒」自居，並聲稱他們是「一小群去年成立的匿名國際藝術家，他們唯一的宗旨是主張及推廣言論自由」。

The graffiti appear across the central residential and commercial districts of Kabul, alongside spray-painted advertisements for translation services, real estate agents, plumbers, septic tank cleaners and roofers. Open drains run alongside the main roads, few sidestreets are paved, traffic control is derisory and public transport virtually non-existent. A cloud of filth from diesel-powered vehicles sits atop a city surrounded on three sides by the peaks of the Hindu Kush mountains, and piles of garbage are picked over by beggars and animals alike.

塗鴉出現在喀布爾市中心的商住區，跟翻譯服務、房地產經紀、水電工、化糞池清潔工及屋頂工的噴漆廣告雜沓紛陳。馬路旁是未加蓋的溝渠，小巷弄鋪設柏油的少之又少，交通管制乏善可陳，公共運輸形同虛設。柴油車噴出的層層黑霧籠罩著這個興都庫什山三面環繞的都市，垃圾堆積如山，乞丐和動物爭相覓食。

Into this harsh landscape, the sudden appearance of modern street art has added a touch of color and controversy -- and the blast walls provide the perfect canvas. Talibanksy's tags are not yet as ubiquitous as Banksy's guerilla art became in London and other British cities over the last decade. Nor is it as sophisticated, so far presenting little more than simple anti-war messages and slogans, in contrast to the infinitely more clever, caustic and creative Banksy murals.

突然出現的現代街頭藝術，為這個嚴酷的景觀增添一抹色彩和爭議，防爆牆則提供完美的畫布。塔利班克西的標籤還不像過去10年在倫敦和英國其他城市的班克西游擊藝術那麼無孔不入。它也不是那麼精密複雜，比起更聰明、挖苦和有創意的班克西壁畫，目前頂多只呈現一點簡單的反戰信息和口號。