This year, other than the bauls and fakirs of West Bengal, we will have a big team from Kushtia in Bangladesh and there will be a special programme of qawwali by Mohammed Ahmed Warsi and team of Rampur, taking the festival beyond Bengal, such as we did last year by inviting Prahlad Singh Tipaniya.
The 8th Baul Fakir Utsav of Shaktigarh, Jadavpur, will take place in the weekend of 5-6 January 2013. As you know, we do this entirely with friends’ support–personal contribution, advertisement in our journal, space for your banners and posters, support towards our CD from last year’s festival, stalls on the festival ground and so on. But this is a non-corporate, non, NGO, no-governmental event and so far it has worked this way. A bit of a struggle, but the rewards are big. For those of you who have been here, you know that it is a wonderful free and shared space for listening to great music by great musicians. For those who haven’t, try and make it to the utsav this year. Also, there is a group on facebook, which you might like to join.?http://www.facebook.com/groups/Baulfakirutsav/.
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.”
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