Free Dr. Shahidul Alam: The Guardian / British Journal of Photography
![Rasel Chowdhury, winner of?the?3rd Samdani Art Award, People on low incomes living in slums beside the railway station at Khilgaon, Kamalapur, Dhaka, 2012, (from the?series ?Railway Longings?, 2011?15) Rasel Chowdhury, winner of?the?3rd Samdani Art Award, People on low incomes living in slums beside the railway station at Khilgaon, Kamalapur, Dhaka, 2012, (from the?series ?Railway Longings?, 2011?15)](https://www.frieze.com/sites/default/files/Editorial/Articles/Railway%20Longings%20_326.jpg)
Free Dr. Shahidul Alam: The Guardian / British Journal of Photography
By Rahnuma Ahmed For the military-industrial complex named the United States, Okinawa is a ‘hub’ for conducting strategic operations throughout the Pacific, but for its…
Thanks for your patience! Posting from KL Express.
I just got back from the third Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) in?the Bangladeshi capital. DAS is the?brainchild of Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani, a young collector couple based in the city; it?s not a biennial, nor an art fair or a festival, but an?intense four-day summit. For it?s third edition, the Chief Curator of DAS, Mumbai-based Diana Campbell Betancourt, decided not to focus on a particular theme per se but on the South Asia region as a?whole, which in itself is a contradictory concept. (What exactly is South Asia? Is Australia a part of it? Sri Lanka? Iran?) She engaged several curators, including me; I was invited to organize an exhibition for the Samdani Art Award, which is given to a Bangladeshi artist between the ages of 20 and 40. Back in October 2015, I had spent a week in Dhaka meeting the 20 artists who had been shortlisted for this award by Aaron Cezar, director of the London-based Delfina Foundation. From my very first conversation with the artists, I?sensed that?we?were at the beginning of an extremely interesting week.
I learned a lot about Bangladesh ? the local scene, art education, religion and why, for instance, art?works about love do matter. Some artists I met mentioned that their partner was either Hindu or?Muslim and that they could not tell their respective families. As the?week went on, I became increasingly enthusiastic about the obvious sense?of urgency with which all of the nominated artists work: Bangladesh is rapidly changing on all levels, and?these artists are all embracing the challenge to get involved, to have their voices heard and to find appropriate forms of?expression for that.
This seemed particularly true?for many of the photographers on the shortlist. As it turned out, they all came from a single school: Dhaka?s Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. Set up in 1998?by the Bangladeshi photographer, writer, curator and activist Shahidul Alam, this private school has been dedicated to documentary photography and reportage from the beginning. Located in the central Dhanmondi/Panthapath area of Dhaka, it is a small institute for about 90 students who follow the three-year professional programme, and for about 600 students enrolled in the short, one-semester course. Initially funded by international organisations, Pathshala now is entirely supported through tuition fees. (Though relatively modest at?US$460 per semester for the professional programme, inevitably, as in Europe or the US, students are?likely to come from more affluent backgrounds, while there are scholarships allowing five students?per year to study for free.)
artnet: Remembering Ansel Adams. Happy birthday Ansel Easton Adams! The artist was born on this day in 1902?in San Francisco, CA. Adams began to take?pictures…
Posted by Priyanka?in Better Photography
Indian Magnum photographer Raghu Rai launches photo school in India Demotix report Magnum photographer Raghu Rai inaugurated his photography school, Raghu Rai Center For Photography,…
Runi Khan was working with me on trying to recreate the “Concert for Bangladesh” in Bangladesh. It was far from easy trying to pull such…
“These defendants were found to have engaged in terrorist activities ? These sentences should send a message that when individuals decide to endanger the safety of our community, they will be held to account.”
Dettelbach, however, was trying to spin the judge’s ruling that, in fact, rebuked the government. Dowd handed down far shorter sentences than the prosecutor sought, reportedly saying that the proposed prison terms were “grotesque” and “doesn’t make any sense whatsoever”. The prosecution had asked for sentences of 30, 25 and 19 years, respectively, for Douglas Wright, 27, Brandon Baxter, 20, and Connor Stevens, 20, in the failed plot to use plastic explosives to topple the Route 82 bridge spanning Ohio‘s Cuyahoga Valley National Park on 30 April 2012.
The Bengal Post: Kolkata 23rd November 2012 A photography workshop at Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) redefined photography widening its meaning from an art…