A TALE OF HOMELESS PEOPLE
“Here, For Now”, a curatorial photography exhibition by Hadi Uddin is currently going on at Kala Kendra, Mohammadpur, Dhaka. Wakilur Rahman is the curator of the show. At the periphery of the city, where garbage is thrown to allow the city to grow, some people build their homes, with discarded furniture and their possessions and animals, assembling them with love. They are not permanent. These people are floating local migrants, according to the curator.
Their physical expression, position, dress-up and belongings are offbeat and bizarre. We are scared but attracted to them and we cannot escape the desire to get to know them better. At times they engage the observer with their sardonic look or liberating laughter. They affably laugh at us and at our attempt to decipher what we see. These images are simple, direct, but not pleasant.
“Hadi interacts with these people and becomes familiar with them. And it is exactly in this power to dissociate us from our own reality and bring us somewhere else, in a dimension where the rules of the game differ from those we are acquainted to. This is where the beauty of these works lies. These subjects are peaceful warriors who enchant us and invite us to enter into a parallel and eccentric 'frame of meaning'. These pictures are a mirror of their own life. The city needs them to develop but, at the same time, refuses to see and provide them with a space,” notes Wakilur Rahman.
Hadi's works are a ballad of these people's lives. He roamed around Boirakhali in Rayer Bazar, Dhaka, and took photographs of the homeless people and their belongings there. Those living in the locality do not have a fixed address, however. The dwellers' existence is similar to that of others, except that they are homeless; their housing orientation is temporary. The homes they live in do not belong to them.
Hadi Uddin grew up in an atmosphere surrounded by light, studio and photography admirers. His father is a studio photographer and his childhood consisted of photographic activities. From the inception of his career as a photographer, he wanted to tell stories. As a fashion photographer, he had been working with leading fashion magazine “Canvas” in Bangladesh for the past six years. He completed a three-year professional programme on Photography from Pathshala, South Asian Media Institute, in 2015. His works have been exhibited at many international photography festivals including Chobi Mela VIII and Dali International Photography Festival.
The exhibition, open every day from 5pm to 8 pm, will conclude on March 22.
Comments