Freedom

Drifting in cage and out again
Hark unknown bird does fly
Shackles of my mind
If my arms could entwine
With them I would thee bind
Rooms it had eight
And doors it had nine
Windows betwixt you find
Up above the glittering hall
Mirrors might make you blind
What fate alas makes bird do thus
Caged bird breaks free to fly
Of bamboo raw the cage I saw
This mind of mine still longs oh so
Lalon Fakir cries as he sees with his eyes
The cage wither and go*
The body, the soul, the self, the universe, Lalon saw freedom not as an entity outside oneself, but as a lived experience. Within yet afar. Ephemeral but tactile. With wings but encaged.
New forms of slavery form new forms of chains. Violence suffered in silence. Ancestral land commandeered. Resistance made illegal.
What mask does freedom now wear? Freedom to profit is the new elixir. Freedom to reach distant markets, to exploit cheap labour. The word that takes us to such dizzying heights leaves the deepest of wounds with its loss. ‘Foreign’ sounding names, ‘wrong’ coloured skin, ‘different’ passports, circumscribe our new freedoms.
Going beyond walls built to occupy territory. Beyond bombs dropped to coerce the unarmed. Beyond cells built to hold the other. Artists paint with colours that don’t exist. Write with words as yet un-invented. Photograph where light is yet to reach. The cage. The door. The wing. The soul. Freedom.
Shahidul Alam
Festival Director
Chobi Mela V
We invite photographers working in the fields of photojournalism, fine art, conceptual or any other field of photography, to interpret the theme “Freedom” in the widest sense possible. Submissions may be made online from 1st March 2008 through to 31st May 2008. Selections will be made by 15th June 2008. Final work must be submitted by 31st July 2008. Festival opens 6th November 2008. Submission guidelines will be available online.
*Translation by Shahidul Alam from “khachar bhitor ochin pakhi” by Lalon Shah.

Author: Shahidul Alam

Time Magazine Person of the Year 2018. A photographer, writer, curator and activist, Shahidul Alam obtained a PhD in chemistry before switching to photography. His seminal work “The Struggle for Democracy” contributed to the removal of General Ershad. Former president of the Bangladesh Photographic Society, Alam set up the Drik agency, Chobi Mela festival and Pathshala, South Asian Media Institute, considered one of the finest schools of photography in the world. Shown in MOMA New York, Centre Georges Pompidou, Royal Albert Hall and Tate Modern, Alam has been guest curator of Whitechapel Gallery, Winterthur Gallery and Musee de Quai Branly. His awards include Mother Jones, Shilpakala Award and Lifetime Achievement Award at the Dali International Festival of Photography. Speaker at Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, Oxford and Cambridge universities, TEDx, POPTech and National Geographic, Alam chaired the international jury of the prestigious World Press Photo contest. Honorary Fellow of Royal Photographic Society, Alam is visiting professor of Sunderland University in UK and advisory board member of National Geographic Society. John Morris, the former picture editor of Life Magazine describes his book “My journey as a witness”, (listed in “Best Photo Books of 2011” by American Photo), as “The most important book ever written by a photographer.” View all posts by Shahidul Alam