Chobi Mela IX to begin Feb 3
Chobi Mela, Asia's first and largest photography festival, will launch its ninth edition on February 3. Organisers made the announcement in a press conference at the Drik Gallery yesterday. This year's theme for the biennial festival is 'Transition', and will run till February 16.
Festival director Shahidul Alam, along with members of the curatorial team -- ASM Rezaur Rahman, Mahbubur Rahman, Munem Wasif, and guest curator Salahuddin Ahmed were present at the press conference.
“There is a lot to be proud about this festival,” said eminent photographer and festival director Shahidul Alam. “This was the first photo festival in the continent, and since then many festivals have taken inspiration from us and are happening in Asia.” He also elaborated on this year's theme – which was selected through an online voting after a discussion forum from a number of themes proposed at the end of the last edition of Chobi Mela. “The world is going through changes – political, social and economic – and people want to know more about it and find ways to go in the right direction,” he said.
ASM Rezaur Rahman elaborated on the selection and structure of the festival. This year's festival will have 31 print exhibitions by 27 artists from 16 countries, with the majority of exhibitions at the Bangladesh Shilapakala Academy. “In the context of Dhaka, we found that it was hard for visitors to visit all the exhibitions that were spread across the city last time, so this year we wanted it to be a little more concentrated,” he said. Aside from Shilpakala, three venues in Old Dhaka – Bulbul Academy of Fine Arts, Northbrook Hall and Beauty Boarding will host exhibitions while there will be a slideshow presentation at Ahsan Manzil. Security for foreign guests was also a concern this year following last year's extremist attacks, and having a central venue was also the sensible choice to facilitate security, Shahidul Alam added.
Exhibitions such as “Kanu's Gandhi” by Kanu Gandhi, “The Poet with The Camera Photographs” of Nasir Ali Mamun/Photoseum (1972-1982), “Native Women of South India: Manners and Customs” by Pushpamala N, “United Red Army” by Naeem Mohaiemen and “Open Wound” by Stanley Greene will be a part of Chobi Mela IX.
Like the past editions, this festival will also see a number of workshops, artist talks, panel discussions and presentations taking place – the most notable being famous Swiss photographer Anders Petersen's “Instincts”. A workshop by Markus Schaden and Frederic Lezmi titled “The Photobook Masterclass” is already on at the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, which is the education venue for the festival.
A mobile exhibition of selected photographs on rickshaw vans – another signature aspect of Chobi Mela – will also take the festival to various areas of Dhaka, particularly those which does not draw a lot of audience to the galleries.
This year, 10 Bangladeshi artists working in various media have been selected as fellows, to whom Chobi Mela has commissioned to produce site-specific artworks for the festival. Artists from different backgrounds of painting, drawing, animation, sculpture, photography, video, sound and installations will expand the possibilities of the medium and test the language of manifestations.
Two events this year have been specifically targeted to young Bangladeshi photographers and photojournalists – workshop “Working Internationally: Strategies and Methodologies” and a talk by Mary O'Shea titled “Safety in Photojournalism”.
“The world knows how far Bangladesh has come in photography, but Bangladesh itself doesn't know that,” said Shahidul Alam, adding that there is an international interest into the Bangladeshi photography scene and what works they are producing. And Chobi Mela, which the New York Times described as “The world's most demographically inclusive photography festival”, will once again make a push to show the home audience the evidence of that development.
Comments