Photography in Bangladesh: a medium on the move

by Maya Jaggi

F?ted internationally, the country?s photographers have struggled for status at home. Could that be about to change?

Water reservoir is for the Komolapur Railway station. It?s the main station in Bangladesh. Dhaka.

From the series ?Railway Longings? (2011-2015) by Rasel Chowdhury

The eerie moonscape of Munem Wasif?s new photographic series, ?Land of Undefined Territory?, appears empty. On closer inspection, it reveals the scars of industrial activity, from vehicle tracks to stone crushing. The sense of menace and alienation is compounded by a three-channel video with a grating soundtrack.
These digital black-and-white shots were taken along an indefinite border between Bangladesh and India ? disputed land that is now home to unregulated mining but which also soaked up the blood of past upheavals, from the first, temporary partition of Bengal under the viceroy in 1905, to Partition in 1947 and the Liberation war of 1971. Ostensible documentary veers into questioning in Wasif?s deeply unsettling yet distanced probing of history, territory, ownership and exploitation. Continue reading “Photography in Bangladesh: a medium on the move”

Old Dhaka by Munem Wasif

Belonging: A book by Munem Wasif

Preface by Christian Caujolle

Belonging
It only takes a single glance to recognize a classic. The confirmation can be seen here, in this direct, forthright photography ? the same quality that came through in the series devoted to ?Salty Tears?, in which Munem Wasif examined, documented and questioned the situation regarding water in his country, Bangladesh. Classic by choice, starting with the choice of black and white, whose relative distancing from reality demands exacting precision in the composition. Arising, as always in photography, from a succession of rejections, eliminations and decisions, this choice precludes the picturesque quality that too often prevails when lands and peoples are viewed through the prism of exoticism. But black and white, while it places the photographer within a documentary tradition long associated with journalism, obliges him to go beyond merely transposing a visual record of the world. He must take a position, and he does, deliberately and consistently.

Open salon at the riverbank, Buriganga, 2005.

Work in progress

a Delhi Photo Festival workshop with?Munem Wasif

In partnership with?Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, Delhi Photo Festival invites photographers who are currently working on a long-term project, a work in progress, to apply for a workshop to be held in New Delhi from September 22 to 26, 2013.

Participants will?not?shoot new work during the workshop. Instead participants will produce/continue a body of work before coming to the workshop as it is important for any photographer working on a long-term project to realize that beyond a certain point, his or her work can take many directions and forms.

The resulting work may be presented as a slideshow at the Delhi Photo Festival on Sept 30, 2013.

WHO SHOULD APPLY

The workshop is open to any photographer with an ongoing, long-term project or body of work, irrespective of age, gender or genre of photography. It is meant for someone who is interested in pushing their work beyond their comfort zone, in sharing ideas and working in a group.

HOW TO APPLY

Send an email to?delhiphotofestival@nazarfoundation.org?with ?WORKSHOP APPLICATION: Work in Progress? written in the subject line of the email and attach the following:

??20 to 40 low-resolution JPEG photos from a long-term project you are already working on and intend to continue working on in the workshop.?(Please note that each photo should be 800 pixels on the longer side saved in a zip folder. Maximum size of the zip folder should not be more than 5 MB).

??A Brief description of your project?(not more than 300 words)

??A Statement of Purpose explaining why you are interested in this workshop and what you hope to learn from it?(not more than 300 words)

??A CV or a short biography

??Proof that you need scholarship, if you are applying for the same.

COURSE STRUCTURE & WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

Online Interactions: 27 Aug to 21 Sept

Workshop in New Delhi: 22 to 26 Sept

After the students are chosen, in the days leading up to the workshop, Munem Wasif will begin working with each participant online – reviewing works and giving them feedback through platform such as Facebook. Students will follow the instruction and upload their work online.

During the final 5 days of the workshop, that will take place at Sanskriti Kendra, New Delhi from September 22 to 26, 2013, Wasif will show his work and explain his working process. The next few days will be spent doing group reviews and editing where everybody will have to present their work and talk about their experience. Finally the participants will be given assignments to present their work and think about its final form. Though the workshop will encourage participants to focus more on the process of experimenting and pushing personal limits than on its final outcome, the resulting work promises to be exciting.

About Munem Wasif

Having grown up in a small town Comilla, Bangladesh, Munem Wasif?s dream kept changing from becoming a pilot to a cricket player and then a photographer. But none of these choices made his father happy. Later he shifted to comparably a big city Dhaka. He found his graduation in photography from Pathshala a life changing experience, which made him aware of his stories, gave him a photographic voice to photograph the dying industry and afflicted workers of jute and tea, excluded people and disrupt lands due to environmental change and salt water, a nostalgic city of love, Old Dhaka.

Wasif prefers to photograph his known people, therefore his country Bangladesh, just to start from the inside of a story. He never finds it a problem to be treated as a storyteller of humanistic tradition, classical in photographic approach, as long as it shows compassion and his emotional experience for the people he photographed. With an outlook of a traditional narrative style, he starts from the opposite of clich?s, when he looses his control from one direction of a story, and allows himself to grow in different directions, like branches on a tree, yet with the same root of humanistic approach.

Wasif won ?City of Perpignan Young Reporter’s Award? (2008) at Visa pour l?image. Prixpictet commission (2009), F25 award for concerned photography from Fabrica (2008), Joop Swart Masterclass (2007). His photographs have been published in Le Monde, Sunday Times Magazine, Geo, Guardian, Politiken, Mare, Du, Days Japan, L’espresso, Lib?ration, Wall Street Journal and many others. He had exhibitions worldwide including, Musee de elysee & Fotomuseam Winterthur in Switzerland, Kunsthal museum & Noordelicht festival in Netherlands, Angkor Photo festival & Photo Phonm Phen in Cambodia,?Whitechappel Gallery in England, Palais de Tokyo & Visa pour l?image in France and Chobimela in Bangladesh.

Since 2008, he is represented by Agence Vu in Paris. He was one of the curators of Chobimela VII, International Festival of Photography. Currently he is working on his upcoming book on Old Dhaka, which will be published from France in September 2013. Currently he is teaching documentary photography in Pathshala, South Asian Media Institute, Dhaka.

www.munemwasif.com

Munem Wasif interviews Shahidul Alam on Chobi Mela VII

Complete article with more photographs at Le Journal De La Photographie
Chobi Mela VII Preparation ? Ranak Martin

Festival Director Shahidul Alam talks about the challenges and expectations one faces when running a festival such as Chobi Mela and points out the festival?s uniqueness and beauty.
There?s only few days left before the beginning of Chobi Mela VII and there are still a thousand things to be done and we are awaiting many guests from all over the world. So tell me, how is this Chobi Mela different from previous editions of the festival? What is special this time round?
S. Alam : ?Firstly, it?s actually an extension of previous ones, What we?ve always done in Chobi Mela is to ensure that it?s a very inclusive festival, there are people from all the continents, there is a very diverse range of work in terms of photographic practices, but also in terms of the ideas behind it. Of course we have some artists who are here for very first time, I mean Graciela Iturbide will be here for the first time, Max Pam will be here for the first time, we are not sure yet if Eugene Richards is able to make it, they have very tight schedules but their work is already here. So yes! Very exciting work. Continue reading “Munem Wasif interviews Shahidul Alam on Chobi Mela VII”

?It?s fun! It?s specular! And it?s wonderfully different!?

The traditional Chobi Mela rally at the start of each festival
Festival Director Shahidul Alam talks about the challenges and expectations one faces when running a festival such as Chobi Mela and points out the festival?s uniqueness and beauty.

There?s only few days left before the beginning of Chobi Mela VII and there are still a thousand things to be done and we are awaiting many guests from all over the world. So tell me, how is this Chobi Mela different from previous editions of the festvial? What is special this time round?
Firstly, it?s actually an extension of previous ones, What we?ve always done in Chobi Mela is to ensure that it?s a very inclusive festival, there are people from all the continents, there is a very diverse range of work in terms of photographic practices, but also in terms of the ideas behind it. Of course we have some artists who are here for very first time, I mean Graciela Iturbide will be here for the first time, Max Pam will be here for the first time, we are not sure yet if Eugene Richards is able to make it, they have very tight schedules but their work is already here. So yes! Very exciting work.
I think it?s also very different in the sense that this time we have a much broader curatorial team, different styles, there?s been a far stronger curatorial input on this festival than there has been previously and of course new venues even within Shilpakala (National Art Gallery), it allows us to do things in a very different way.
I think it?s also different because there is much much more Bangladeshi involvement in this festival then there?s ever been. So in a sense while Chobi Mela is something we have been doing over so many years, its only now the Bangladeshi public is waking up? What a fantastic event it is. And I think this will certainly be an event to remember.
Continue reading “?It?s fun! It?s specular! And it?s wonderfully different!?”

Ten Photos, Ten Stories: Munem Wasif on GMB Akash

by Naeem Mohaiemen

Ten Photographs, Ten Stories[Translated from Bengali by Naeem Mohaiemen]
By then, the inevitable happened. First Shahidul, then Shehzad, Abir, Kiron? one after another, a daring piece of work. All hard core black-and-white, capturing a humane moment. Akash also started out in this mode. There was a unique caring in his photographs. A forgetful rider on an exhausted horse at the beach. Or, an intimate scene of Akash’s mother bathing his grandfather. These early black and white photographs carry the shadows of that established style. In any case, there was tremendous pressure on the younger photographers. Difficult to stand with your head held high. Not easy to brush off the weight of that established structure. If there is no new language, new stories cannot be told. Then even breathing became difficult. Continue reading “Ten Photos, Ten Stories: Munem Wasif on GMB Akash”

Flashback 02: Sohrab Hura

Sohrab Hura Photo by Munem Wasif

The second interview in our?Flashbacks?series features Indian photographer?Sohrab Hura?who lives and works in New Delhi. Continue reading “Flashback 02: Sohrab Hura”

Yumi Goto on Chobi Mela

Pictured in the middle: Yumi Goto Photo by Maika Elan

Flashback 01: Yumi Goto

Over the next two weeks we will be featuring a series of interviews called Flashbacks where artists and particpiants talk about what they took away from the Chobi Mela experience. We will have around 6 people give their views on the festival, so stay tuned! Continue reading “Yumi Goto on Chobi Mela”

Kamra Publishes Kamra Edition- 2

Kamra?is excited to announce Kamra?Edition 2 with the co-publisher, Nokta.

Kamra is a bangla book on photography which published its first edition on 26th January, 2012. After getting overwhelming response with edition 1, Kamra edition 2 comes with more text and photographs. Keeping documentary photography in mind, Kamra edition 2 includes a wide range of documentary practice with unique and different views. Starting from classic documentary to today?s contemporary practice, the book includes text on Nan Goldin, Eugene Smith, Martin Parr, Josef Koudelka etc. This edition also translates two important texts on critiques and theoretical views on documentary photography with the tittle- Documentary, Pramanikota o Bibidhartho by Martha Rosler and Pramanno Alokchitrer bhetor, bahir o otopor by Olivier Lagun.
Continue reading “Kamra Publishes Kamra Edition- 2”

Bijon Sarker died today?

By Munem Wasif

Bijon Sarker died today.
When I heard he had an accident, I was at Pathshala. Suddenly I didn?t know what to do, whom to call. I though of calling Popi da his son, but we weren’t on good terms since Bijon da?s interview in Kamra. It was hard for me.

@ Munem Wasif/ Beauty Boarding
Came back home and found scroll news on tv screens that Bijon Sarker is severely injured. I called Chandan bhai, he was on his way to the hospital. We realized he would need lot of money for his treatment. I tried raising little money from students, friends, collogues, from Drik, from Pathshala. It was hard but we managed to raise a little money. Of course that was not enough. I went to hospital few times, there was nothing we could do. He was in ICU, alone.

@ Munem Wasif/ Beauty Boarding
Next day I had to fly to Cambodia. Saw the beautiful festival in Siem Reap, biked with friends in the countryside, had wonderful food in the streets. I came back after few weeks and got involved with so many things. Called Munni apa and Chandan bhai to get his update. But nothing much, Bijon da was still lying in his bed senseless.
Bijon da was one of the few photographers of his time who pushed the boundary of images while everybody else was busy making pretty photographs. He experimented in the darkroom and created images that we had never seen. He was concerned about the Bangladesh Photography Society. He missed Beg Shaheb as his companion. He was sad he didn?t manage to inspire the next generation of photographers to experiment and to learn to see the unseen. He was a poet who walked alone in the narrow streets of Old Dhaka. No body has written a feature about him in a newspaper, there was no book by him; his negatives have been eaten by ghun poka.

@ Bijon Sarker/ From BPS catalogue

@ Bijon Sarker/ From BPS catalogue
I promised him I would arrange a darkroom, papers and chemical, so he could start making photographs without a camera. He told me nobody must go to the darkroom; nobody could see his images before he had finished. Yes Bijon da I promised. I failed.

@ Munem Wasif/ Beauty Boarding
Bijon da died today; there were only a few people in Shahid Minar. We couldn?t manage a little more space for this artist to work. He was the?Man Ray?of Bengal.
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