Spanning 150 years of photography from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, this ambitious survey of historic and contemporary works includes over 400 images by 82 artists. Using ’shared culture’ as a parameter, it is the first comprehensive vision of South Asia to be presented in the West; these images are not ‘about’ the region and there are no European perspectives to be seen. Indeed, those looking for a text driven, ethnographic narrative of an ex-colonial world will sadly be missing the point.
Installed in a bastion of Western art – London’s Whitechapel Gallery – 63 years after Indian Independence and the subsequent dissolution of the British Raj, this show aspires to explore its topography with decidedly indigenous eyes. Of course, politics is inherent in picture making – our ‘ways of seeing’ and the context in which we see them pose fundamental issues. Refreshingly, this is a case of self-discovery, a kind of meditative picturing of a collective self and its geographical truths, where the ‘other’ is observing from within.
Images like Mohammad Ali Salim’s Worker’s at a city construction site… (Bangladesh, 1980) and Mohammad Arif Ali’s Rainy Days Image of Lahore (Pakistan, 2008) are not invested in archetypal victims or street urchins. While they do not ignore the pain or the facts, they offer a purposeful and frequently hopeful alternative to the media driven images of death and destruction, which have arguably desensitised audiences on the ‘outside’. The curators have set out to question and even defy our received notions of the Subcontinent, presenting a sort of counter-colonial response to the official Western history of photography. They are asking us to celebrate South Asia’s contribution, beginning in India in 1850, and in this sense the show becomes a pioneering catalyst, inspired by the gaps.
The curatorial line wants to trace the finer social and creative turning points inherent in each body of work. Sunil Gupta references a particular instance in how transsexuals are depicted in the context of the historic “fluidity of sexuality in India”, previously outlawed under colonial law. While homogenisation is an obvious danger, he is quick to remind us that “culture cannot be partitioned”, and the power of photography to engage contemporary audiences is such that ‘Westerners’ are likely to notice the similarities between these nations, while ‘South Asians’ are necessarily sensitive to their differences. But the landscape is shifting, as ‘majority world‘ issues are increasingly addressed by those who understand them most and can no longer be ignored. More representations of the internal structures of hitherto ‘foreign’ realities will eventually balance out those one-dimensional visions of systems, symptoms, and conflicts. If there is a trend in the emergence of ‘indigenous photographers’ it is that they are able to achieve an intimacy with their subjects which enhances their humanity. For me it is this authenticity of image making that carries the editorial eloquence of its subject matter.
Paradoxically, despite its thriving art market, photography as a discipline is still emerging in India. And in Pakistan interest in this medium by a new generation of artists is a promising but recent phenomenon. Bangladesh has led the way with an established international festival – Chobi Mela – and Dhaka’s dynamic Drik gallery (Sanskrit for vision) which has represented local professionals for more than 20 years.
This show is arranged in five thematic sections, which inevitably blend into and across national stories: the portrait, the performance, the family, the street, and the body politic.
Legendary photographers from Bangladesh, such as Amanul Huq and Nasir Ali Mamun are presented alongside their present-day counterparts, such as Abir Abdullah, Shumon Ahmed, and Shahidul Alam.
There are works from the early 19th century from the renowned Alkazi Collection in Delhi, the Abhishek Poddar Collection in Bangalore, and the White Star Archive in Karachi, and many previously unseen works from family archives, galleries, and established contemporary artists. We see hand-painted images of courtesans and families by anonymous photographers in the very first Indian-run studios, journalistic depictions of key political events (Rashid Talukder’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returns to his homeland… in 1972 and Benazir Bhutto’s arrival at Karachi airport in 1988), and cutting edge reconfigurations of the built up environment (Farida Batool’s “Nai Reesan Shehr Lahore Diyan” 2006, and Rashid Rana’s Twins 2007). As virtual co-protagonists in the unfolding of these stories, viewers are left to provide their own social critiques.
Fantastic circus acts (Saibal Das’s Matinee Show 2001) and glamorous Bollywood stars (Dev Anand and Meena Kumari in the 1950s) capture portraits within portraits, reinforcing photography’s ability to empower the object of its gaze. Here is a region reconstructing its own image, touching on castes and sexuality as naturally as geopolitics and environmental disasters. It is not the ‘otherness’ we need to consider, but rather our willingness to become re-acquainted with what we have presumed to know.
Echoing the literary musing of one of the curators, Radhika Singh, who titled the show on a line from T.S Eliot’s Ash Wednesday (1930) – “This is the time of tension between dying and birth; The place of solitude where three dreams cross…” – I can’t help recalling William Blake’s Letter to Revd Dr Trusler (1799) – “As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers”. Packaging imagery and argument is always problematic, but this show’s self-assured and celebratory tones manage to amaze both aesthetically and intellectually. As if the collective lens were refocused on the circulation of discourse and the forging of transnational connections between people across time. It’s a pity this exhibition is not, at least at this stage, travelling to places like Birmingham or Leicester, where the fields of vision from within contemporary Britain would no doubt offer even richer educational perspectives.
Rosa Maria Falvo
Independent writer and curator, with a focus on Asian contemporary art. She is the Asia-Pacific Publications and Projects Consultant for Skira International Publishing in Milan.
He was clearly a peasant, and appeared to have travelled a long way to get to the photography museum. But unlike other visitors to the museum, he didn’t make his way to the exhibits or marvel at the splendour of the site. It was an officer he wanted, and finding his way through the labyrinthine corridors, he entered the office of the curator and took out his tattered prints.
Tea was brought in for the visitor along with the sugar cubes Iranians plop into their mouth, as they sip the liquid. The curator went through all the prints. Treating each with the gentle care only a lover of photography has for original prints. With a broad gentle smile, he beckoned the man to a more quiet room. They began to talk. They were now old friends.
It is this love for photography, this passion for the medium and the generosity of the man that has characterised Bahman Jalali. The show he had organized for me at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, was done at a time when I was relatively unknown. I was surprised that a curator in Iran had searched out a photographer in Bangladesh, to judge their international contest, and to show work at one of their most prestigious venues. The friendship and hospitality of Bahman and his photographer wife Rana, was the foundation for the love for Iran and its arts that has stayed with me.
After the tragic death of Kaveh Golestan, Bahman had been instrumental in the setting up of the Kaveh Golestan Awards. I was humbled at being asked to give away the prizes at the first award ceremony. Again, it was Bahman, who had insisted that a photographer from Bangladesh, rather than a big western name be asked to be the chief guest at this important ceremony. Rahnuma had joined me on this trip. She rarely accompanies me on my trips abroad, but for Iran I didn’t have to do too much convincing. Once in Tehran, she soon found her own circle of friends. Bahman and Rana we shared. Later, when Shadi and Omid, came over to participate in Chobi Mela, Shadi became Ma’s adopted daughter.
My later trips involved meeting many other Iranians I was proud to consider my friends. The unpublished manuscripts Abbas Kiarostami showed me in his house, Ruchira and Sunil taking me to the gallery para of Tehran, the long chat and the exclusive view of ‘sensitive work’ by the ever provocative Parvaneh Etemadi at her studio, bumping into Isabelle Esraghi in a back street in Isfahan, meeting my old friend Satish Sharma at my talk in Tehran, were all moments to savour, but it was the long conversations with Bahman and Rana, where we shared dreams about photography and fiercely argued the merits of our favourite images, that has made Iran so special for me.
I had often wondered why Iran had given birth to so many great photographers. It was while Abbas was chairing Magnum, that I had taken two young photographers, Shehzad Noorani and Mahmud to visit the Magnum office in Paris. I remember the star struck youngsters soaking everything in, as Abbas walked them through the corridors that have heard the footsteps of so many of the greats of photography. Reza Deghati, had made three visits to Pathshala. We had featured his work in Chobi Mela, and felt proud at having featured him in one of Drik’s calendars. His brother Manoocher had also spoken to Pathshala students. A DrikNews photographer had the privilege of assisting him as a fixer. Being close to a great Ustad is still one of the finest ways to learn. My attempts to get Kiorastomi to Bangladesh had met snags with scheduling, but it was my failure to get Bahman to Chobi Mela that had vexed me the most. Before Dr. Hashemi of the Iranian Cultural Centre in Dhaka left, he had promised to arrange it via SABA, the Iranian Art Academy. It was to be a highlight of Chobi Mela VI.
Chris Rainier had just written about the new National Geographic Awards. I was to help him identify the “Peter Magubanis of photography”, the few individuals who had been the mentors, the inspiration and the driving force in shaping the photography of today. National Geographic will miss this giant amongst giants. Chobi Mela will miss the celebrated artist. I have lost a dear friend. The man who brought in the prints to Bahman’s museum so many years ago, will miss an unusual man who made sharing a cup of tea with a peasant, in a big government office, seem as natural as light passing through a photographer’s lens.
Ustad Bahman Jalali was an internationally acclaimed photographer and renowned artist. He had a gentle manner that touched all of those that came to know him, he was good hearted, observant, a private and simple man, but an expert in his field.
He was liked and respected as a teacher and photographer by his colleagues, contemporaries and by his many students and without a doubt has influenced many young photographers deeply. He was known as a war photographer and covered the Iranian Revolution, and published two books Khorramshahr and Days of Blood, Days of Fire. He was also involved in making documentaries but he is mostly known for the time and devotion that he bestowed on his students and as a real good ustad (teacher) to photographers, photojournalists and his students at the universities that he has taught for many years. He was easily the most popular professor as many students desperately wished to have him as their tutor.
He had collected a large collection of glass negatives from Golestan Palace, and published these in a very interesting book of his, ‘Visible Treasure’. He was curator of Iran’s first photography museum and he exhibited internationally – currently he was participating in an exhibition in Milwaukee. In 2007 he was honoured by the Fundacio AntoniTapies in Barcelona by a retrospective exhibition.
I worked with Bahman Jalali during the three years of the Kaveh Golestan Photojournalism Awards for which he was head of the jury as well as a member of the steering committee. I came to know his gentle yet interesting sense of humour during our many committee meetings and later during less formal dinners and time we all spent together along with our mutual good friend Mrs Golestan. I always found him calm and serene – he spoke his mind, never insisted but let the logic of his point reveal itself.
Bahman Jalali and Rana Javadi
With his wife, my good friend the photographer Rana Javadi, he lived in a beautiful house in the centre of Tehran where we all went to pay our respects this afternoon. From what I saw today, the pain and sorrow of his students was overwhelming, one of them said to Rana, “I do not know if we are to express our condolences to you or you to us” – this made everybody there watery eyed as this young man let out his emotion and cried his heart out along with all of us present.
Bahman had arrived back in Iran from Germany late last night, saying that he wanted to be under his own lahaf (blanket).On Friday morning he did not feel well and so they went to the Tehran Clinic, where everything seemed under control until suddenly at about 3 in the afternoon, he kissed his wife’s hand and smiled and thanked her and a few minutes later left this world for the next, as calmly and quietly as he was famous for.
He will never be forgotten by all those who loved and respected him and I am sure that he will be looking after loved ones and his students from high above.
His funeral will take place on Sunday morning, 17th January, commencing at Artists Forum and he will be buried in the Artists plot at Beheshte Zahra.
Please join me sending his soul a prayer and we hope that his loved ones and Iranian photography will be able to bear this loss. We are all surrounded by our memories of him.
The first Friday of every month, we would clear out the furniture of Bijon Da’s “Boithok Khana” (drawing room), move some of the chairs out to the verandah, and set up a table for the speakers. People would invariably arrive in dribs and drabs, but pretty soon, the rickety chairs would get filled up and the crowd would spill over into the verandah. This was where Manzoor Alam Beg held court.
Young photographers with their first black and white prints, would mingle with the likes of Rashid Talukder and Anwar Hossain. The ever young Dr. Ansaruddin Ahmed would hand out his pristine prints. The crowd would wait in expectant silence for the results of the monthly photo contest. The monthly photographic newsletter, then without pictures, would be distributed. Invariably, there would be a speech or two. It was a camera club, trade union and a hangout joint, all rolled into one. Despite the mix, the salon smell hung in the air. Much was made of acceptances in salons. A gold medal, a bronze, or even an honourable mention, was celebrated. Winners were generously applauded. Outside of the salon circuit we knew little of what was going on elsewhere, but if it was a well we were living in, it was a nice well. That monthly meeting meant a lot to all of us.
There were few who remained from the old school. The recent split from Pakistan meant that the established studios like Zaidi’s had gone. But the war of liberation changed the Bangladeshi psyche. 1947, while of immense significance to South Asia, meant little to Bangladeshis. History books barely touched upon it. There were few references to it in literature. 1971 on the other hand was a lived experience. Unsurprisingly therefore, apart from the early photographs of Golam Kasem Daddy, dating back to 1918, there are few early photographs from Bangladesh. There followed a romantic period where photographers like Amanul Haque and Naibuddin Ahmed produced stylized landscapes and carefully set up idyllic images of people. Nawazesh Ahmed and later Anwar Hossain, began to adopt a more contemporary feel to their images. Bijon Sarker and Manzoor Alam Beg, combined elements of classical pictorialism with the curiosity of an experimentalist. Sayeda Khanam was the lone woman of that era. Doggedly pursuing an almost entirely male profession.
1971 was a turning point. Rashid Talukder’s nose for a picture and his journalistic instinct, ensured that he was at the right place at the right time throughout Bangladesh’s turbulent history. Having had no formal education in photography, Talukder was freed of the compositional binds that many contemporary image makers were trapped within. The 2 ¼ square had its own aesthetic, but Talukder and other photojournalists used the balanced frame to capture some of the most disturbing images of the 20th century.
Dismembered head at killing fields of Rayerbazaar. Photo: Rashid Talukder/Drik/Majority World
Talukder’s dismembered head of a slain intellectual, framed by bricks and their sharp shadows, being perhaps one of the most powerful images of the 20th century. Talukder, Mohammad Shafi, Jalaluddin Haider, Aftab Ahmed were amongst the press photographers who documented some of the everyday events of 1971. But Talukder’s picture of the bayoneting of Biharis, had been hidden from public sight until Drik published it in 1993. Kader Siddiqui, the man responsible for the killings, was too powerful a man to antagonize, and until then, no publication had been prepared to take the risk. A similar frame by Michel Laurent, had meanwhile won a Pulitzer. Talukder’s dismembered head too, had been passed by the the authors of the Century Book. Others, had recorded 1971 in their own way. Taking great risks as amateurs, preserving a history of our birth pangs, knowing it could signal death.
Photographers then started specializing. S S Barua, and Nawab became the bird specialists, to be later followed by Enamul Huque and Shehab Uddin. Consumerism had approached, and photographers in the new nation were turning to fashion. Shamsul Islam Al Maji brought a modern touch to glamour, but Amanul Haque in his classical style also painted a rural Bangladesh, complete with the beautiful farmer’s wife, her red sari provided by the photographer, her gourd plant, planted by him a year ago, so it would be the right height at the right time of the year.
Then came the salon era. Mohammad Ali Selim, Kazi Mizanur Rahman, Kashi Nath Nandy, Abdul Malek Babul, Debabrata Chowdhury were all fine photographers, but their arena was the camera club contest. The rule of thirds, the well placed diagonal, the balanced image, was what everyone was making. They entered contests, won prizes, vied for medals and certificates. This was a world in itself. The Bangladesh Photographic Society became the launchpad for the contest winning photographers. The stickers at the back of the prints were often more important than the images themselves. The society newsletter proudly boasted of salon acceptances. Strategies for winning contests were hotly debated at the monthly meetings. Stardom was based on number of medals and not on quality of content. Pretty pictures ruled.
While photojournalists had recorded street life and political strife, and a few photographers had addressed poverty, there was no culture of documentary practice. No personal projects. Photography was still seen as an illustration, meant to fit in with a predetermined caption. The movement against General Ershad changed all that. Resistance had been building, and the iconic image of Noor Hossain, with “Let Democracy be Freed” painted on his back, was a turning point. In 1971, the photographs were taken surreptitiously, under fear of death. In the new movement, the photographers were in the fore. They were the witnesses of the people and empowered by people’s will. Ershad clamped down on the media, enforcing censorship. The media responded en-masse, stopping publication in protest, but the photographers continued to work, and when the general fell, and an impromptu exhibition was organized of pictures of the movement, the queue outside Zainul Gallery was nearly a mile long. There were near riots as people stormed the gallery to get a glimpse of their hard earned victory.
The struggle for democracy had an obvious impact on the photographic movement. 1989 was a significant year. 150 years after the birth of photography, the region’s first photo library, Drik, was set up. The Bangladesh Photographic Instititute was set up. After sustained lobbying by photographers a bill was passed in parliament for a department of photography to be set up in Shilpakala Academy, the academy of fine and performing arts. That too was in 1989 though it was never implemented. The workshops at the Bangladesh Photographic Institute and at Drik showed there was another way of working and that photography had more to offer than simply producing pretty images or winning awards. Photography was also trying to move away from the shadows of painters who still ruled supreme. The success of a photograph had always depended on how well it resembled a painting. The medium began to find its own identity, and while photography was still not considered art, photographers were now not so concerned about the label. So photographers found their own solutions. They did what other artists and media professionals had failed to do. They aggregated, and made up for lack of external support by supporting each other. A revolution was in the making.
But there were other pressures too. Most photographers still found it difficult to make a living and the lure of ‘bidesh’ (foreign lands) was too much for many to withstand. Several of the young photographers who were making the transition away from Salon photography, decided to try their luck overseas. Years later, not one of them has been successful in establishing a career in photography. Nasir Ali Mamoon was an exception in some ways. Portraiture had always been his forte. While others drove taxis, worked in petrol stations, or temped in low paid jobs, Nasir took this opportunity to produce portraits of people he admired. Ginsberg, Gunter Grass and many others filled his album. While unsuccessful commercially, he was able to expand his photographic repertoire and eventually, when he decided to leave the others behind and return to his native land, he was able to establish himself as THE portrait photographer of the era. Fine portraits adorned the newspaper he worked for, and while the post was largely ornamental, he was made the first picture editor of a newspaper.
There followed a resurgence in the media. With the return of democracy, new newspapers filled the newsstands. There was also another movement taking place. The nation’s first picture library had been set up. While international media had no interest in the democratic struggle in Bangladesh, the cyclone in 1991 that followed was familiar fodder to world media and their appetite was insatiable. There was a difference though. This time the work of local photographers also filled the pages of the New York Times and the Newsweeks of the world. Mostly they were similar images different only in having been taken by locals, but soon the content and the focus also changed. The New York Times published a full page on their Sunday Week in Review on the 1991 cyclone which did not show a single corpse. There were pictures of fishermen rebuilding their boats, farmers replanting seeds, villagers rebuilding their homes. The world began to engage with a new story teller. One with local roots. The first fund raising photo exhibition took place in 1991 and raised over 4000 dollars for cyclone victims.
The newly formed agency Drik, began to bring in photographers from all over the globe to conduct workshops. Its regular calendar became a showpiece for Bangladeshi photography. Well printed postcards and posters, complete with credit lines for photography. Photographers learnt to protest when their pictures got stolen. A movement was taking shape. It crystallised with the formation of Pathshala. The South Asian Institute of Photography. The setting up of the school represented a clear move away from Salon photography. Documentary photographic practice complete with the engagement it involved became an emerging trend. Soon a few women joined the ranks, and the photo stories ranged from the usual ‘subjects’ of international photographers like prostitution and floods to the more personal representation of family life, and the search for identity. The students were hungry, and the explosive mix of inspiring teachers and driven students soon created the photographic explosion that was inevitable. Bangladesh emerged in the world of documentary photography as no other nation had. Before 1998, no Bangladeshi photographer had ever won an award at World Press Photo. Shafiqul Alam Kiron’s winning entry on women victims of acid attacks was soon followed by Chobi Mela, the first festival of photography in the region. The heady mix of great photographers walking down the streets of Dhaka. Showcasing work on the same gallery walls with the best of the best, would have to be inspirational. Meanwhile the school continued shaping their craft, pushing them to their limits. Some made it to Masterclass, others were star students of the seminar programmes. Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Guardian, Le Monde, and other leading publications across the globe suddenly woke up to this great wealth of photography in Bangaldesh.
Then things got stuck. Success is a hard act to live with, and the rapid recognition of the star photographers created a flock of clones who followed. Some found their own identity, but many were just following. Again it was Chobi Mela to the rescue. The identity of the festival itself was changing. Drik’s success had given it the overall stamp of documentary practice, but slowly other photographic genre was creeping in. Fine art, conceptual work, the odd installation, began to work its way into the gallery spaces. The level of intellectual engagement drew many others besides photographers. Practitioners from Africa, Latin America and Australia joined the Europeans and North Americans, and of course Asians who regularly joined the festival. Speakers like Noam Chomsky had conversations with regional legends like Mahashweta Devi. This was all the spark that was needed. A resurgent Pathshala, started producing more provocative work, and broached new territory. It was a movement in the making and the rules were being made as one went along.
Chobi Mela V tours to Kathmandu
The Bangladesh segment of the exhibition “When Three Dreams Cross” tries to map this journey, through the images that formed the milestones of this movement. There are significant departures from the mapping we had attempted to follow. The irrelevance of 1947, and the huge presence of 1971, has played a role that is to be expected. Other less expected characteristics have been the absence of the physical representation of habitats, artefacts, and mementos that are often a part of vernacular photography. Until recently, even family photographs, weddings and the many other everyday things that always been the visual basis for understanding cultures has largely not been preserved. Waqar Khan, has made an important contribution by collecting old photographs, mostly from aristocratic homes, which documents some aspects of this history. But the warm humid climes of this delta, has led to the erosion of much of our physical heritage. The shifting of the rivers has led to an uprootment of many who no can no longer relate to a homestead they can call their own. This transience and the nomadic existence that follows has perhaps led to the loss of a need to preserve. Very few archives exist. Not only in visual terms, but in music and film and many other art forms. This absence, in a way, documents a mode of thought and a way of life, that perhaps tells more about Bangladesh than the missing photographs might have done.
Not every artist is featured, but every influence is present through what they, or others who were inspired by them, produced. The early work of Golam Kasem and the establishment of the Camera Recreation Club had a distinct influence. Manzoor Alam Beg’s steadfast role as a mentor and an organizer, held the community together for many years. The Ahmed brothers brought out the first book on photography, and Nawazesh Ahmed, an agronomist with a PhD, brought respectability to the medium and at least for him, an acceptance within academia. Anwar Hossain was the enfante terrible who brought immediate attention through his arresting images, his controversial statements, and his maverick lifestyle. Sadly he too lost the edge that was his hallmark and has largely retired into oblivion. Hasan Saifuddin Chandan and the string of fine photographers who produced evocative images in the early nineties, also lost their way, though the Map Agency, set up by Chandan and a few other talented photographers continues and has made a valuable contribution. Sayeda Farhana, Sanjida Shaheed and a few other photographers, mostly women, began to explore the edges of contemporary photography, using their training as social scientists, fine artists, and in other areas of learning to inject into photography, a tertiary value which the more straight laced, mainstream photographers had failed to achieve. But the moment still belongs to the young crop of photojournalists who have recently emerged from Pathshala. Abir Abdullah, GMB Akash, Saiful Huq Omi, Munem Wasif, Khaled Hasan and other emerging photographers, all photojournalists of exceptional talent, made the world sit up. The wealth of exceptional photography emerging from this small nation has taken the photojournalism world by storm. There are those who feel there is a sameness in their approach that they would like to question and Shumon Ahmed and Momena Jalil are amongst the photographers who have ventured outside the tried and tested path to find other modes of expression. But this incomparable strength in photojournalism cannot be denied. Many of these former students are now the new mentors. The traditional forms of apprenticeship might have been lost over the years, but a more classic form of pedagogy has led to a learning environment that will surely take the world by storm.
Shahidul Alam: Curator
Written for the catalogue of “Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh” 21 January 2010 – 11 April 2010 Galleries 1, 8 & 9 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. Photographers Naibuddin Ahmed and his younger brother Nawazesh Ahmed, passed away between the time this article was written and when it was published.
(Left to right: Abir Abdullah/Drik, Golam Kasem Daddy/Drik, Abdul Hamid Kotwal/Drik, Nasir Ali Mamun/Drik, Rashid Talukder/Drik, Mohammad Ali Salim/Drik)
The work of Bangladesh’s historic and contemporary photographers come together in a landmark exhibition which explores culture and modernity through the lens of photographers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Where Three Dreams Cross is a major survey of historic and contemporary photography from the subcontinent, with over 400 works by 82 artists, to be held at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, UK.
From the archives of Drik, legendary Bangladeshi photographers such as Golam Kasem Daddy, Sayeeda Khanom, Amanul Huq, Nasir Ali Mamun and Rashid Talukder will exhibit alongside their contemporary counterparts, including Abir Abdullah, Munem Wasif, Momena Jalil and Shumon Ahmed. Dr. Shahidul Alam, founder and director of Drik, will also be exhibiting and was one of the curators who brought the show together.
Images on show range from the earliest days of photography in 1860 to the present day. Seminal works from the most important collections of historic photography, including the renowned Alkazi Collection in Delhi, the Drik Archive in Dhaka, the Abhishek Poddar Collection in Bangalore, and the White Star Archive in Karachi join many previously unseen images from private family archives, galleries, individuals and works by leading contemporary artists.
Where Three Dreams Cross gives an inside view of photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It includes images from the first Indian-run photographic studios in the 19th century, social realism and reportage photography from the 1940s,
the documentation of key political moments, amateur photography from the 1960s, and street photography from the 1970s. Contemporary documentary-style photographs of everyday life present an economic and social critique, while the
recent digitalisation of photography accelerates crossovers with fashion, film and documentary.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
· For further press information or images please contact:
The exhibition tours to the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, 11 June – 22 August 2010.
A full colour catalogue accompanies the exhibition, with a curator’s introduction and essays by Sabeena Gadihoke, Geeta Kapur and Christopher Pinney.
Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is supported by: Andy Warhol Foundation, Columbia Foundation, Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
· List of Participating Artists:
• Abir Abdullah, Bani Abidi, Syed Mohammad Adil, Ravi Agarwal, Shumon Ahmed, Aasim Akhtar, Shahidul Alam, Mohammad Arif Ali, Mohammad Amin, Kriti Arora, Abul Kalam Azad, Pablo Bartholomew, Farida Batool, Jyoti Bhatt, Babba Bhutta, Hasan Bozai, Sheba Chhachhi, Children of Sonagachi, Bijoy Chowdhury, works produced by CMAC, Iftikhar Dadi, Saibal Das, Prabuddha Dasgupta, Shahid Datawala, Lala Deen Dayal, Anita Dube, Gauri Gill, Asim Hafeez, Amanul Huq, Sohrab Hura, Fawzan Husain, Manoj Kumar Jain, Momena Jalil, Sunil Janah, Tapu Javeri, Samar and Vijay Jodha, Golam Kasem Daddy, Sayeeda Khanom, Dinesh Khanna, Anita Khemka, Sonia Khurana, Abdul Hamid Kotwal, Arif Mahmood, Nasir Ali Mamun, Anay Mann, Deepak John Matthew, Huma Mulji, Nandini Valli Muthiah, Pushpamala N., T.S. Nagarajan, D. Nusserwanjee, Prashant Panjiar, Praful Patel, Mohammad Akram Gogi Pehlwan, Dileep Prakash, Ram Rahman, Raghu Rai, Khubi Ram Gopilal, Rashid Rana, Kushal Ray, Kulwant Roy, Vicky Roy, Mohammad Ali Salim, T.S. Satyan, Tejal Shah, Tanveer Shahzad, Ketaki Sheth, Fahim Siddiqi, Bharat Sikka, Dayanita Singh, Nony Singh, Pamela Singh, Raghubir Singh, Swaranjit Singh, Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, Vivan Sundaram, S.B. Syed, Rashid Talukdar, Ayesha Vellani, Homai Vyarawalla, Munem Wasif, G.A. Zaidi.
· Curators:
Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is curated by Sunil Gupta, photographer, writer and curator; Shahidul Alam founder and Director of Drik Archive and Pathshala, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Hammad Nasar, co-founder of the not-for-profit arts organisation Green Cardamom, London, UK; Radhika Singh the founder of Fotomedia, Delhi’s first photo library and Kirsty Ogg from the Whitechapel Gallery.
· The Five Themes (Incorporating historic, modern and contemporary works):
The Perfomance focuses on the golden age of Bollywood in the 1940s and 50s and includes images of actors and circus performers by Saibal Das and Bijoy Chowdhury as well as artistic practices that engage with ideas of masquerade. In addition to
glamorous photographs of actors, film stills and behind the scenes action shots, this section also includes the work of Umrao Sher-Gil, Bani Abidi, Sayeeda Khanom, Sonia Khurana, Amanul Huq and Pushpamala N.
The Portrait charts the evolution of self-representation, through the portraiture of a range of individuals from maharajas to everyday people. Works range from nineteenth century studio portraiture drawn from the Alkazi Collection to Pakistani
street photography by Babba Bhutta, Mohammad Akram Gogi Pehlwan and Iqbal Amin as well as contemporary work that offers a new take on the form by Shumon Ahmed, Gauri Gill and Samar and Vijay Jodha.
The Family explores and close relationships and group affiliations within society. It traces a history from late nineteenth century hand-painted family portraiture by artists such as Khubi Ram Gopilal through to informal amateur snaps by Nony Singh and Swaranjit Singh as well as contemporary investigations of creed, communities and race.
The Streets addresses the built environment, social documentary and street photography. This section encompasses a range of works from the early studies by Lala Deen Dayal to images of a globalising India by Bharat Sikka. It intersperses the
photo-documentary traditions of Ram Rahman and Raghubir Singh with contemporary practices by artists such as Iftikhar Dadi and Rashid Rana.
The Body Politic looks at political moments and movements within the subcontinent’s history. It touches upon the key dates of 1857, 1947 and 1971, as well as expanding beyond the tension lines between castes and beliefs to explore sexuality and eco-politics. Portraits of nineteenth century courtesans feature alongside portraits of politicians. Also included are Sunil Janah and Homai Vyarawalla’s iconic press images, the photo journalism of Tanveer Shahzad and Rashid Talukdar, Kriti Arora’s documentation of Kashmir, Munem Wasif’s images recording the effects of global warming in Bangladesh and Sheba Chhachhi’s female mendicants.
Mohammad Arif Ali's photograph of rain in Lahore. Photograph: White Star, Karachi/Whitechapel gallery
So much for the post-national, globalised world. Looking through hundreds of photographs from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which will go on show at the Whitechapel Gallery in London this month, I find myself unable to follow the curators’ lead. Wisely, they have chosen to group the images thematically, rather than according to nationality; but almost immediately I am looking hungrily for Pakistan (my homeland), largely ignoring India, and pausing longest at pictures of Bangladesh from 1971, the year in which it ceased to be East Pakistan.
It isn’t that I don’t find anything of interest in India or in photographs of it. But of the three nations, India has always been the most visually reproduced; many of the photographs taken there feel over-familiar. This is not the over-familiarity of a scene I’ve personally witnessed or inhabited: it is the compositions or the subject matter or sometimes the photograph itself that I feel I’ve seen time and time again. There is Gandhi stepping out of that train; there are the Mumbai boys leaping into a body of water on a hot day; there is the movie poster in the style of movie posters.
It is something of a surprise to find how intent I am on tracking down pictures of Pakistan. I have spent the greater part of my life there and will be returning shortly, but neither homesickness nor estrangement lie behind my wanting to see more. It is the role of photographs themselves in Pakistan that may serve as explanation. There is still very little appreciation of photo-graphy as an art form, so pictures tend to fall into three categories: private celebrations, news – and cricket. I have seen countless pictures of weddings, of burning buses, of a fast bowler winding his arm over his shoulder at the end of his run-up. Life’s more quotidian details occur away from the lens, and so feel unacknowledged. Pakistan is a nation tremendously poor at acknowledging what goes on when it comes to individual lives, and bad at acknowledging the sweep of its own history. Great areas of the past and present remain away from the nation’s gaze.
If there is one period in history from which Pakistan most adamantly averts its eyes, it is 1971. That year, Pakistan ceased to be a nation with two wings, and the state of Bangladesh came into being. And so I turn to the Bangladeshi photographers in order to fix my gaze on that blood-soaked epoch. I don’t even realise I’m doing this, at first. I think I’m looking at a man’s head, cast in marble; the sculpture is cheek-down amid a cluster of stones, almost camouflaged by them. Then I read the caption: “Dismembered head of an intellectual killed 14 December 1971 by local collaborators of Pakistani army. Bangladesh.” It is extraordinarily eerie, and sad. There are other pictures of that period, too. Many, if not all, will probably be familiar to anyone from Bangladesh; none are part of Pakistan’s consciousness.
Pakistan’s erasure of its own muddled history is the subject of Bani Abidi’s witty series of photographs, The Ghost of Mohammad Bin Qasim. In the nation’s attempt to create an official history, which focuses on Muslims in the subcontinent (rather than Pakistan’s geographical boundaries), the Arab general Bin Qasim (712 AD) was lauded for being the first Muslim to successfully lead a military campaign in India – even though he did little to consolidate his position. In Abidi’s photographs, a man in Arab dress is shot at different locations in Karachi, including the mausoleum of the nation’s secular founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The man is clearly Photoshopped in, deliberately so: he represents the attempt to graft a false history on to Pakistan, linking it to the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia.
While Abidi’s work asks the viewer to engage with history and politics, there are others that draw a more visceral response. Mohammad Arif Ali’s photograph of rain in Lahore captures the size and force of raindrops during the monsoons; the vivid colours at the edge of the frame also evoke how startlingly rinsed of dust the whole world looks. The boy darting out into the downpour, ahead of a line of traffic, his shalwar kameez plastered to his skin, is both lord of the world and a tiny creature, in danger of being crushed. It brings a familiar world vividly to mind. And yet, of course, exactly this scene could be played out – and photographed – in Delhi or Dhaka. It is foolish of me to think of it as quintessentially Pakistani. Sometimes these countries are three; sometimes one: the movement between three distinct nations and one region is impossible to pin down.
Away from the pictures of 1971, the Bangladeshi images are both unfamiliar (Munem Wasif’s picture of a Burmese worker struggling through bushes in Bangladesh) and familiar: notably, Abir Abdullah’s Women Working in Old Dhaka, which shows two women making chapatis together, though their positioning suggests distance rather than camaraderie. Is their lack of proximity a consequence of class or personality?
I turn back to the pictures of India and am almost immediately struck by Ram Rahman’s Young Wrestlers, Delhi: two boys, each wearing a pair of briefs. It is mystifying that I didn’t notice before how one of them stares assertively at the camera, his muscles relaxed, in the most casual of poses. The other’s eyes are unsure, his muscles tensed, he is trying to suck in his stomach and puff up his chest, and there is a rip, it seems, in his briefs. The boys are touching but it’s clear they aren’t friends – not at the moment, at least. I worry for the tensed boy. He is going to lose his wrestling match; he is going to lose it badly.
And then there is Anay Mann’s picture of a breastfeeding woman with headphones over her ears: she looks wary, her head angled away from the camera. Is there someone in the room, just out of the camera’s reach? Or has she retreated into her own thoughts? And why is it that children’s toys can add such menace to a picture, as is the case with the yellow smiling object, its head bobbing, at the edge of the image?
I would see this exhibition differently if it were in Karachi. Or Mumbai. Or Dhaka. In London, I am so far removed from these landscapes I’m aware of the photographs’ “otherness”. But there’s also this: any kind of simultaneous engagement between these three nations, with so much in common and so much that sets them apart, is almost unheard of within the subcontinent itself. In Karachi, Dhaka or Mumbai, I would spend a very long time watching people look at these photographs. How we see ourselves; how we see each other – these two questions would be politically charged where they are not here. Strange that, only 63 years after the Raj, London should seem such a historically neutral venue, comparatively speaking.
Writer and translator Tarek Omar Chowdhury, a committed Maobadi and a dear friend, was deeply worried. `Of course I do not support what happened, although I must admit I look at it differently.’ He was referring to the government’s pressure to close down ‘Into Exile – Tibet 1949 – 2009,′ an exhibition organised by the Bangladeshi chapter of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT), in partnership with Drik, November 1 – 7. `I express my solidarity,’ said his e-mail.
At first it had been the cultural counsellor from the Chinese embassy in Dhaka. Turning up at Drik he told Shahidul Alam, its managing director, “We would like you to cancel the Tibet exhibition.” Tibet was a part of China. If the exhibition was held, the relationship between Bangladesh and China would be affected. Drik, he was politely told, was an independent gallery. They did not have the right to tell Drik what it could, or could not show. But other visits and phone calls soon began: Bangladeshi government officials, police, special branch, members of parliament. Using either intimidation or persuasion, they basically conveyed the same message. The show must be cancelled. Later, the police insisted that Drik needed official permission but were unable to produce any written document. On the 1st afternoon, police in riot gear entered Drik’s premises and locked it up. A symbolic opening, inaugurated by professor Muzaffer Ahmed, was held on the street outside. Having registered its indignation, Drik decided to close down the exhibition the next day as a mark of protest.
Policemen encircle Professor Muzaffer Ahmad, chairman of the Bangladesh chapter of Transparency International, as he went to Drik Gallery in the capital Dhaka to open an exhibition titled ‘Into Exile – Tibet 1949–2009’ on November 1.
— New Age photo
I am thinking of writing about it, said Tarek. But of course, you must, I said. His piece, `Tibboter odekha chobigulo onek kotha boley’ appeared inSamakal, 13 November. While highly critical of government interference and heavy-handedness, Tarek voiced suspicion about the SFT and its funding sources, whether the opening was timed to coincide with Dalai Lama’s Arunachal visit, to draw media attention, to villify China by portraying it as an occupying force in Tibet. The US government, more particularly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), wrote Tarek, has directly funded the Tibet movement from 1956 to 1972, and later, indirectly, through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organisation best described in the words of its first acting president, Allen Weinstein, “A lot of what we [the NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
What Tarek has written is amply supported in research conducted by many academicians and scholars. The NED was established in 1984 with both Republican and Democratic party’s support during president Reagan’s administration to “foster the infrastructure of democracy – the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities” around the world. Created by an act of Congress, it is funded primarily through annual allocations from the Congress. It operates through four core institutes: the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDIIA), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), and the Center for International Private Enterprise. The latter, CIPE, has in recent years awarded a grant to the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and more recently, it has supported an initiative undertaken by the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI). But I will write about that some other day. To return to Tibet and CIA connections: NED-funded organisations include SFT, which was founded in 1994 in New York. Together with five other organisations, the SFT in January 2008 proclaimed “the start of a ‘Tibetan people’s uprising” and co-founded a temporary office in charge of coordination and financing. Other published sources document how, in the USA, “the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that group. The Dalai Lama’s second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA in 1951 [although CIA aid was only formally established in 1956]. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.” (Michael Barker, “Democratic Imperialism” ).
So, I asked Shahidul, what made you agree to co-hosting this exhibition? I thought it would be an interesting one, he replied. The public would have the opportunity to see rare photos. And I did tell the embassy officials that we would be happy to show a Chinese exhibition, if the quality was right. Our point is to open up the debate. And it’s nothing new, we have faced pressure before. From the British Council in Dhaka over the European Currency Unfolds show. From Bangladesh government officials over some images of 1971. And then, Dhaka’s Alliance Francaise had backed out from sponsoring my exhibition which was critical of Ershad’s military rule. So did the Art College. Intimidation, fear, exhortations to self-censorship—that too, by progressive institutions—these are not new. But of course, he added, this does not mean that we should not critically appraise ourselves. We are not above criticism. I invite it.
My attention turned to something Barker had written. NED’s funding issue, he says, is clearly problematic for Tibetan (or foreign) activists campaigning for Tibetan freedom. Progressive activists should first and foremost cast a critical eye over the antidemocratic funders of Tibetan groups. Only then can progressive solutions for restoring democratic governance to Tibet be generated by concerned activists. Or else, he says, we get what William I Robinson terms polyarchy, or “low-intensity democracy” which mitigates the “social and political tensions produced by elite-based and undemocratic status quos” and suppresses “popular and mass aspirations for more thoroughgoing democratisation of social life in the twenty-first century international order.” As I read, I was reminded of Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who received the Nobel Peace prize (1976) in recognition of her determined attempts to peacefully resolve the troubles in Northern Ireland. Maguire had gone to Israel in 2004 to welcome Mordechai Vanunu, on his release from prison after serving an 18-year prison sentence for disclosing Israel’s nuclear secrets. She was hit by a rubber-coated bullet in 2007, while participating in a protest against the construction of Israel’s security fence outside the Arab settlement of Bil’in. She was taken into custody by the Israeli military this year for being on board a small ferry carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Recently (October 2009), Mairead was one of three Nobel Peace laureates to launch a major `Thank You Tibet!’ Campaign to commemorate Tibetan peoples 50 years in exile. The Campaign statement extends support to “His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet.” It says, “They are a model for all of us: despite the attack on their people and the displacement of their culture they preach and practice compassion and respect for the dignity of every person.”. Compassion and respect for all? Some may not agree. Recently (October 2009), when asked about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, His Holiness had replied, “I think too early to say.”
To return to Tarek. I did tell him, I don’t agree with everything that you say. One area of contention is an old one, centering on whether Tibet is better or worse off, under Chinese communism. As Michael Parenti, severely critical of the Hollywood `Shangri-La’ myth puts it, old Tibet, in reality, was not a Paradise Lost. But if Tibet’s future is to be positioned somewhere within China’s emerging free market paradise—with its deepening gulf between rich and poor, the risk of losing jobs, being beaten and imprisoned if workers try to form unions in corporate dominated “business zones,” the pollution resulting from billions of tons of industrial emissions and untreated human waste dumped into its rivers and lakes—the old Tibet, he says, may start looking better than it actually was.
The other point has to do with recent news reports of the presence of Chinese interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who had gone to grill Uighurs (a Muslim minority from the autonomous region Xinjiang, in western China). Chinese officials were actively assisted by US military personnel to soften up the Uighurs for interrogation: sleep deprivation, freezing temperatures, isolation, holding up their head by the hair and beard so that Chinese officials could take facial photographs. According to them, it was “their lowest point” at Guantanamo. This active assistance was extended, while Washington reportedly continues to support secessionist movements in Xinjiang by supporting several Islamist organizations through CIA-ISI (Pakistani military intelligence) liaison.
Another friend, a keen political analyst, predicted that the US officialdom stationed in Dhaka would soon enough overcome its prolonged misgivings about Drik, as expressed in an e-mail from the USIA director John Kincannon, `Given what I’m reading in Meghbarta and your apparent active opposition to President Clinton’s visit to Bangladesh, it seems odd that you would expect USIS would have much interest in cooperating with Drik on anything’ (March 16, 2000). My friend was right. An invitation extended by the US ambassador himself arrived, sooner than predicted, for Shahidul.
“Kamera tulen”. Elsewhere, one would think a hundred times before pointing a camera. Permission, legality, issues of representation, all came into play. In any Bangladeshi village, getting people out of your lens is the problem. A cluster of heads surround the LCD. Peals of laughter. Old toothless smiles, a little baby held up so she can see. The disappointment of being left out. There might be serious issues to be dealt with, but right now being photographed was all that mattered.
With every intervention, one has concerns. Entering people’s lives, creating expectations, making friends, all have to deal with the disengagement that follows. It was people you were dealing with. How do you walk out of a life you have changed, perhaps forever? What do you leave behind, how much do you take away? These were difficult questions and we didn’t really have answers. But we’d tried it before, in cities and in villages. The remarkable transformations it had made to some children’s lives made the risk worth taking.
There were aesthetic concerns too. In talking of composition, rules of thirds, moments, balance, were we suppressing their spontaneity? Did we impinge upon their way of seeing? Were we erasing their natural ability to tell stories? We needn’t have worried. Sure, they tried things out. Pictures were created with remarkable composition. Balanced frames with well-placed elements formed stylised images that a trained photographer would have been proud of, but we had underestimated their instincts. Our fears of over intrusion were unfounded. The most striking images resulted not from our training, but because they had a voice. They could now tell their own stories and no one was going to get in their way, not even their teachers. The proud, chest-out, stiff at attention pose, that thwarted every photographer looking for something ‘natural’ was very much part of that expression. The loud coloured décor that would embarrass the urban genteel, was shown off with panache. Quirky images of everyday scenes, seen the way only children see, were the nuggets that glittered through our light box.
There were quiet reflective moments too. Their realities, the every day challenges, the matter of factness with which they dealt with hurdles, had an immediacy that would humble a trained professional. Layered between romantic images in fields of Kash, looming clouds over flowing rivers, coiled branches silhouetted against stormy skies, were photographs that talked of strife. People less able who insisted on being able. Children longing to be children. A much too young bride. Another young mother to be, gingerly treading through a treacherous path. Absent are the images they were not allowed to show. That threatened a patriarchal society’s image. Pictures they had been forced to delete. Pictures they had staged, as their reality was being suppressed. To delete, to stage, to deal with censorship. These are things they hadn’t been taught. They were learning on the fly. Dealing with situations as best as they could. They were coping with life. Perhaps the ultimate lesson.
“You speak good Chinese”, said Qian Kaifu, Cultural Councellor of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Bangladesh. A soft-spoken elderly gentleman. Standing beside him was a quiet, smartly dressed woman, Cao Yanhua the Cultural Attache, who passed him a bag. “We’ve brought some presents for you.” The 2010 calendar would be useful, but a silk tie was probably not the most appropriate gift for me. The tea was not so unreasonable. How were they to know I was not a tea drinker?
Irfan knew the meeting with Free Voice, regarding the media academy was very important and wouldn’t normally have disturbed me. So when Mr. Kaifu, instead of showing interest in our sole Chinese member Jessica Lim in the library, insisted that we find a quiet place to talk, I realized it was more than a courtesy call.
He got straight to the point. “We would like you to cancel the Tibet exhibition” he said. Reminding me that Tibet was a part of China, he went on to explain how the Bangladesh China relationship would be affected if the show went on. He also spoke of the many things we could do together, the exhibitions we could bring. About how such a famous organisation like Drik would find many partners in China. It seemed churlish to remind him that my recent application for a visa when I was to judge the TOPS photojournalism contest in China, had been rejected.
As politely as I could, I reminded Mr. Kaifu that ours was an independent gallery. I asked him how he felt he had the right to tell us, what we could show. I invited him to the show and assured him that he would be free to present his own opinion at the opening. We would be happy to show a Chinese exhibition, if the quality was right. He wanted to see the gallery and a colleague showed him around as I went back to the meeting.
I was reminded of the time when the director of the British Council in Dhaka had demanded that we take down Roshini Kempadoo’s exhibition, the European Currency Unfolds, as he felt it showed Britain in a bad light. Of the midnight call by the minister, on the eve of the first Chobi Mela, when he felt ‘certain’ images that didn’t support the official version of the war of 1971, should be taken down from the National Museum walls. Of the fact that the Alliance Francaise, had backed out of their sponsorship of my show criticising general Ershad’s rule. Of how every major gallery, including the ‘progressive’ Art College gallery had refused to show the work. Of the civil society protest against the government, when they had used the military to round up opposition activists, that had taken place in our gallery. Of why we needed a gallery of our own.
On that last occasion, people with knives, under military protection, had attacked me in the street the following day. I had no illusions about the implications of our action, but this small organisation was going to hold its ground. We had relocated from the National Museum, and put up the 1971 show at Drik instead. Despite the threats, our curatorial freedom is something we have staunchly protected, every time.
It was evening before the phone call from the ministry of culture came in. “China was a friend, you mustn’t show pictures of Dalai Lama” the high ranking official went on. “No no we are not talking of censorship, but…” This was followed by some artist who spoke as if he was a friend. I couldn’t place either of the callers, though I could place the ministry official by his rank. I could see it was to be a multi-pronged attack.
I was in a meeting with two Korean professors that Gitiara Nasreen, the chairperson of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Dhaka university had brought over to Drik when Hasanul Huq Inu MP, the president of JSD (Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal) called. He reminded me of how supportive Bangladesh was of the “One China Policy”, the implications that holding the exhibition would have for the nation.
The next visitors from Special Branch were perhaps to be expected. Speeding up the staff meeting in the studio, I went down to try and handle this next ‘situation’. Mr. Khairul Kabir did most of the talking while Mr. Palash nodded from the side. They wanted details of the organisers. I asked for an official request. It wasn’t simply my concern for the organisers, I also wanted to test out the ground rules. “Khamakha jotil kore phelchen” (you are making it unnecessarily complicated) was his veiled threat. I was familiar with this language, but decided to hold my ground. A few calls to ‘higher ups’ followed, made more for me to hear than anyone else. “He is not being cooperative… Yes he is here… I have explained the gravity of the situation… We have done nothing else yet…” went the conversation.
The responses to the text messages I had been sending out in between began to come in. “Would you like some tea?” I offered. Mr. Kabir’s smile was not as sweet as mine as he declined. A lawyer friend’s response was heartening. I was within my rights to refuse to provide information until an official request had been made. I knew such technicalities might not help if the situation became more awkward, and decided to send out a twitter alert, just in case. A few more calls followed, to more ‘higher ups’ and the pair walked out to make more calls. That gave me the opportunity to call my lawyer friend and to mobilise more support. Just in case.
The Special Branch do like me. They came to visit again. Initially it was Mohammad Enamul Haq the Chief of City Special Branch Dhanmondi Zone. He had been sent by SS Additional IG. Shah Alam Officer in Charge Dhanmondi Thana, joined us later. The initial cordial conversation, turned sharp when I ref
used to divulge the contact details of the organizers. They reminded me of how it would become difficult for Drik to operate in the future if we didn’t take the side of the government. I reminded them that I was siding with the law. That the law applied to the police, was an unknown concept to Shah Alam.
“The show has to be stopped” were his passing words, along with a terse instruction to pass on this message to the organizers. As we wait for the opening later this afternoon, I am unsure of where the next call is going to come from. Reports are coming in of the Bangladesh police preventing a journalist from filing torture allegations against paramilitary soldiers, I wonder what the implications are for Drik in the days to come. After 25 years of working to promote photography in Bangladesh, it is interesting to find the government suddenly taking an interest!
Is there an art form that does not draw upon other disciplines? Are literature, music and architecture not informed by visual culture? Are the many manifestations of visual art not encapsulated within them? Today, the boundaries of creative work are difficult to define. If one has to draw a boundary, perhaps it is the sky. The activities that question our intellect, philosophy, science or art – have all directly or indirectly, become complementary.
Painting and photography, these two forms of visual art are about seeing and showing, creating images and visual signs. The differences in their mode of production, has created some particularities. Painting is not merely the earliest form of visual art, but also the earliest example of human creativity. In this long journey, its structure, its form, its language and its expression both outside and within, have drawn upon each other and gone through transformations. Photography, the youngest of the visual art forms, is less than two centuries old, but has gone through dramatic shifts both within and outside.
The advent of this young visual art form has influenced painting, the earliest visual art form, the most. Very few painters have been able to distance themselves from this influence. According to many, photography has evolved from within the fine arts. Painters have searched for ways to capture the fleeting visuals that surround them, and it is this need that has enabled the discovery of photography.
Earlier in this decade the celebrated British painter David Hockney through his book, “Secret Knowledge” analysed the creative practices of prominent westernartists. This led to a storm of controversy in learned circles, for in that book, Hockney talks of how, well known artists had, prior to photography, used various techniques to enhance their painting skills. Da Vinci, Velázquez, Caravaggio, Van Eyke and many other painters had used lenses, mirrors and many other optical devices, to help them create their paintings. The book provides detailed descriptions of these techniques.
One of these devices was the camera obscura. Astronomers had used the camera obscura to obs as early as erve heavenly objects1630. This led physicists and optical scientists to the invention of the telescope and the microscope which revolutionized astronomy and the world of unseen microscopic objects. It opened up a new frontier in our visual culture.
The camera obscura took on many shapes and forms between the 16th and 19th centuries. Large, small, with and without lenses, with reversing mirrors, etc. They were all designed to render a faithful rendering of the scene before us.
Of those who were involved with painting and the visual arts, and also played an important role in the development of photography, a key figure was Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. Well before he began to improve upon the camera obscura he had established a reputation as a painter, particularly in panoramic painting and theatrical illusion. He later invented the diorama. He began experimenting with photography since 1823. Meanwhile another artist, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce successfully created a permanent rendering of a scene in 1822. Niépce had been working on lithographs for quite some time. So the advent of photography involved an amalgam of the two disciplines right from the start. Daguerre and Niépce began collaborating on their research, and overcame many of the obstacles in their path. In 1833, after the death of Niépce, his son succeded him as Daguerre’s partner.
Daguerre’s successful use of photography in 1839 (by a process known as the Daguerreotype) when he was able to record the effect of sunlight through chemical means, created a stir, and the Parisians felt this was superior to painting as it was more lifelike than painting could ever be. The Daguerreotype became increasingly popular and the use and power of photography spread. At the same time, Daguerre was given more responsibility, particularly in the preservation of valuable documents.
By the time photography became ubiquitous in the representation of human activity, the human landscape had also begun to change. Industrialisation led to the disappearance of earlier modes of living. Perhaps the camera too is a product of this industrialization. Photography’s ability for accurate representation led to a rapid increase in its usage. Since the Paris Commune, photography began to be used as material evidence in many political investigations. The revolutionary transformation that had taken place in advertising, post-Napoleon, due to the lithograph, was succeeded by a similar transformation due to photography. The role played by painting was gradually taken over by photography. Gradually, photography took on a more diverse role. Its contribution in extending the scope of visual arts to that of visual culture, is well recognized. On the other hand its replicability gave the image a popularity which other visual art forms like painting lacked due to the limitations of the medium. Rather, even in the fine art spectrum, the reproduction of paintings through photography has led to its democratization and a place in popular culture. Other artwork in museums, galleries and private collections, have become more accessible to the general public by their reproduction through photographs. Consequently, the chapters in western contemporary arts that have gained in prominence, owe their success to the discovery of photography. The advent of photography has transformed the structure of painting, its language, its technique and its perception. In adapting an image or painting to the confines of the photographic process there are elements that get truncated. Before the advent of the mechanical eye of the camera painters were very conscious of these truncations and ensured that the canvas was able to contain the gaze of the viewer.Visual boundaries were created through the use of shadows, or play of colour to restrain the eye. However, dividing the canvas itself was deemed acceptable. The image is a fragment of the visual scene, but artists want to create a complete vision, through the conjunction of images split across canvas divides. The tensions between the whole and the fragment, the seen and the unseen reflect the effects of the artist and the perceptive influences of the social structures she finds herself in. The visual structure or composition of an image has a focal point, around which the other elements are placed. This placement could even be an invisible pyramidal structure that provides stability in our everchanging reality. An attempt to arrest time, or perhaps suggest timelessness. The ramifications of the contemporary art forms reflect perhaps current social structures, and our collective wisdom, religion, philosophy, concerns, from the deeply personal to the centralization of power.
Our perceptions are changing. The inventions, the tools, the techniques follow a parallel path to these ideas. Photography is such a representation of our times. This avatar of our times has broken the boundaries of our experience, it has immersed itself into the fine arts. Similarly, this advent of photography has injected new energy into other contemporary fields of learning. The visual divides of a canvas are no longer a threat to the painter, rather she has learnt to incorporate it into her visual language. Her frame can now be invaded by peripheral objects that interject, exude, linger at the edges.The snapshot aesthetic has been appropriated into her language. What is interesting is that such visual grammar was in use even before photography was invented. Perhaps this was a pre-visualisation of photographic forms in our minds. It manifests itself in woodcuts. Perhaps the impressionists were inspired by Japanese printmakers in the same way that the visual truncation of photography has influenced other visual artists.
In the early days, photography was perceived as a threat by painters, but instead they have gained a new independence and a different visual grammar. It was the impressionists that led the way to this change. The aspects of photography that were trapped within the accepted norms of painting have also found new freedoms. The techniques of dissemination, as well as the specificities of production have become modes of expression for the artist. Freed of the rigidities of material taboos, there is a new democratization in the arts. The modes of production have opened new doors. There was a time when artists followed pre-determined layouts or set ideas which were enacted in the studio. Now they migrate to the open, letting their experiences guide their artistic rendering. No longer does their art work need to conform to a fixed visual straightjacket. The acceptance of this uncertainty has been liberating. The edges are now blurred. The brush has taken on new forms. The ability to freeze fleeting moments, has led to time and timelessness becoming elements of construction. The appropriation of photography has led to a modernization of the arts.
Photography has become a vital ingredient not only of visual arts, but of visual culture. But art critics and intellectuals have raised questions about the creativity and aesthetic validity of the medium. However it was in 1859 when photography held its own space in the Paris Annual Art Exhibition. A few years later in 1863, after a few legal skirmishes, photography was officially recognized as an art form by the French government.
While painting has been influenced by photography through seen and unseen ways, photography too has gained through the discipline of the visual arts. The pictorial syntax of painting has evolved over time. Many consider photography to have a ‘pictorial syntax without a syntax’. There are others who think photography is a literal rendering rather than a representation of reality. That it is a receptacle for reality, and can hold no more than what is visually obvious. That it does not have the independence that other visual art forms have. These questions about the validity of photography as an art form have now lost relevance. What a photograph holds depends upon who, when, where and how, it is presented and contextualised. The postscript film ‘Letter to Jane’ (1972) directed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, is a back-and-forth narration by both Godard and Gorin. The Hollywood actress Jane Fonda had gone to Hanoi during the Vietnam war. A photo of her was printed in the French newspaper L’Express. The film serves as a 52-minute cinematic essay that deconstructs the single news photograph.
It is difficult to value a medium based on its specific characteristics. It depends upon time, space and context, and the perceptions of the individuals or collectives that surround it. It is true, that photography can seek out, hold, capture and select, or arrange. While it may differ in modes of creative production, are these not intrinsic to all other art forms? In practice these categorizations depend upon the depth of intellectual ability, the sensitivity, the passion, and even the knowledge of the one who decides. That is precisely why creative work varies with time, space and context. Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’, opened up new spaces for creativity. Soon the tools, the medium and the process, of art became secondary, the ideas and the concepts became the central elements. Duchamp inverted a urinal and called it art. He established the relationship with the roots of one’s work with what one created. He linked creativity with history and culture. His notion that art could be about ideas rather than material things revolutionised thinking about art. When this urinal, through its presentation lost its original functionality, then it entered a new space. Took on new meanings. So the construction of the artwork, or the creativity in its form gave way to the ideas and concepts of the artist.
The interrelationship between painting and photography in Bangladesh is different. In our visual practice, the fine arts institute has a firm foundation. From an organizational perspective it is this academy which quantifies artistic merit. As I’ve mentioned earlier, the Salon de Paris had, over 150 years ago, accepted photography as an art form in fine art exhibitions. That is about a 100 years before fine art practice itself was initiated in Bangladesh. We suffer from the inferior complex that colonial heritage has left us. We unthinkingly accept what is western as superior, so why this condescending attitude towards photography? Even now the fine art exhibitions at Shilpakala Academy (the academy of fine and performing arts), do not recognize photography. But the funny thing is that at the Asian Biennale, many participating countries submit photography as their artwork. More recently digitally manipulated photography is accepted as art. So even the disparity towards the medium is not consistent. Why then is photography not treated as part of the visual arts in Bangladesh?
This may be due to the patriarchal mindset or the fundamentalist concepts about fine art or to do with the power-play between the strong and the weak, the experienced and the inexperienced, or indeed a struggle between the past and the present, the old and the new. We have not learnt from the natural progression of either history or civilization, where progress is entwined with change. Who knows where our art is heading? Our lifestyle, or reality, or work sphere, our learning, our future, our hopes and the dreams of our next generation will shape the future of our art.
Translation by: Shahidul Alam
Dhali Al Mamoon
Dhali Al-Mamoon is a painter and a lecturer at Chittagong University. He was born in 1958, in Chandpur, Bangladesh. He holds a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts, University of Chittagong. He received the National Award 2000, Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka, for the best art work of the year and the Grand Prize in the 12th Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka, 2006
How does one articulate a history spanning two decades in a few lines? The truth is, you can’t. Which is why we are sharing with you some of our proudest moments in the best way we know how – with images.
This exhibition is not about the number of years that have passed, but the milestones achieved and the battles won. It is about the new paths we have forged from the unlikely location of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh.
While we try to show cherished snippets of our past, there are others that we have to keep in our memory. The people who have helped us, the mistakes we made, the things we had to believe in with all our heart – these things are more challenging to visualise, but just as important.
Drik was set up to be a platform for voices from the majority world, and on this special occasion, we are proud to introduce the first in the Golam Kasem Daddy Lecture Series.
Twenty years.
For some, it could seem like an eternity. For us, this is just the beginning.
