Women in the July Uprising: Essential Then—Why Erased Now?
Women were at the heart of the July Uprising—powerful enough to shift the country’s imagination of what resistance could be. ...
Now, more than half a year after Bangladesh rose in a people’s revolt, we’ve realised a transformative possibility that resonates with the phonetic sound of ‘Re’. ‘Re’ symbolises collective imagination and the revival of dormant hopes. We envision ‘rebuilding’ when disruptions signal new beginnings. We also imagine ‘regeneration’ of a primordial future world, environmental healing, and rejuvenation. More so, in response to human disturbances, we aim to restore damaged ecosystems, increase biodiversity, enhance nature’s resilience, and remain defiant in the face of adversity. The eleventh edition ‘re-imagines’ the euphony of ‘Re’.
Exhibitions
The Romantic Documentarian
Amanul Huq stands among the pioneers of creative photography in Bangladesh. From childhood, image-making drew him in—first as lines on ...
The Reassuring Hand Gestures of Big Men, Small Men, All Men
Bani Abidi’s works span video, photography and drawing. They look at the fragile construction of the nation-state and the everyday ...
The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and The Enigmatic Meaning of Their Dreams
For over twenty years, Alessandra Sanguinetti has been documenting the lives of two cousins, Guillermina and Belinda, in rural Argentina. ...
(un)learning Palestine, embodying solidarity
We made this for you, the reader, to pick up a thread—any thread—and feel it pull you into a vast, ...
If the Land Could Speak
“Green wood, a cracked pot – How shall I cook rice? Mother Bonobibi, Tell me what to do?” – Munshi ...
Rights of Passage
What compels the journey against the established cartographic order, whether for political dissidents or asylum seekers? Can lives lived, and ...
But a Wound that Fights
We are its salt and its water. We are its wound, but a wound that fights. Sister, there are tears ...
Participants
Adam Broomberg and Rafael Gonzalez
Adam Broomberg and Rafael Gonzalez are both Berlin-based artists whose collaborative and individual practices explore photography, political engagement, and social ...
Alessandra Sanguinetti
Alessandra Sanguinetti (b. 1968) is an Argentine/American photographer based in both California and Buenos Aires. She has published six monographs: ...
Amak Mahmoodian
Amak Mahmoodian is a multidisciplinary artist and educator. She began her career as a research-based photographer in Iran in 2003. ...
Amanul Huq
Born on the banks of the Jamuna River in Kodda village, Sirajganj, in 1925, Amanul Huq emerged as one of ...
Asia Art Archive (ft. the archives of Sheba Chhachhi and Lala Rukh)
Asia Art Archive (AAA) is an independent non-profit organisation in Hong Kong initiated in 2000 in response to the urgent ...
Bani Abidi
Bani Abidi was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and now works between Berlin and Karachi. She uses video, photography, drawings and ...
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme work together across a range of sound, image, text, installation, and performance practices. Their practice ...
Belal Khaled
Belal Khaled is a Palestinian photographer and visual artist based in Doha. His practice centers on documenting conflict, displacement, and ...
Daniel Chatard
Daniel Chatard is a German-French documentary photographer and visual researcher based in Hamburg. His work explores power structures, collective identity, ...
Ernest Cole
Ernest Cole was a South African photographer known for his groundbreaking 1967 book “House of Bondage”. In the early 1960s, ...
Felipe Romero Beltrán
Felipe Romero Beltrán is a Colombian photographer based between Madrid, Spain, and Paris, France. His artistic endeavors are deeply rooted ...
Hoda Afshar
Hoda Afshar is a visual artist and documentary maker from Iran whose practice focuses on the intricate relationships between politics ...
Indre Serpytyte
Indre Serpytyte is a Lithuanian artist based in London whose multidisciplinary practice spans photography, sculpture, installation, and painting. Her work ...
Karachi LaJamia
Karachi LaJamia was founded in 2015 by artists Shahana Rajani and Zahra Malkani as a nomadic space moving outside the ...
Kazi Sharowar Hussain and Gitartha Goswami
Kazi Sharowar Hussain is a poet, journalist, and cultural activist from Barpeta district, Assam India. He is a vocal advocate ...
Lisa Barnard
Lisa Barnard is a British artist, researcher, and teacher whose photographic practice addresses real events using traditional documentary modes, alongside ...
Moonis Ahmad Shah
Moonis Ahmad is a visual artist from Kashmir working across installation, sculpture, sound, video, and programming. His practice explores the ...
Mosfiqur Rahman Johan
Mosfiqur Rahman Johan is an anthropologist and documentary photographer based in Bangladesh. His work explores humanitarian, environmental, and socio-political realities ...
Muhammad Salah Abdulaziz
Muhammad Salah Abdulaziz is a Sudanese photographer and curator based in Berlin. His work explores cities, relationality, and the organisation, ...
Myriam Boulos
Myriam Boulos is a photographer based in Lebanon who began photographing at sixteen to engage more closely with reality. Her ...
Payal Kapadia
Payal Kapadia is a filmmaker based in Mumbai. Her work explores memory, friendship, political unrest, and the textures of everyday ...
Rahima Gambo and Tatsuniya Artist Collective
Rahima Gambo is a visual artist based between London and Abuja. Her work explores the conceptual territories between photography, moving ...
Rena Effendi
Rena Effendi is a filmmaker, writer, and award-winning documentary photographer based in Cairo, Egypt. She is also the author of ...
Ri
Ri is a lens-based visual artist from Myanmar whose practice explores queer identity, intimacy, and belonging. Their work weaves together ...
Ritual Inhabitual
Tito Gonzalez Garcia and Florencia Grisanti are both Paris-based and co-founded the collective Ritual Inhabitual in 2013. The collective is ...
Salma Abedin Prithi
Salma Abedin Prithi is a Bangladeshi photographer and visual artist whose practice explores memory, social violence, and the psychological weight ...
Samaa Emad
Samaa Emad is a visual artist based in Gaza whose work explores the intersections of art, identity, and humanity. Her ...
Samar Abu Elouf
Samar Abu Elouf is an award-winning Palestinian photojournalist based in Gaza. Her work documents events where she lives, focusing on ...
Sheida Soleimani
Sheida Soleimani is an Iranian-American artist, educator, and activist based in Providence, Rhode Island. The daughter of political refugees who ...
Sumi Anjuman
Sumi Anjuman’s artistic practice emerges from Bangladesh’s conservative Muslim landscape, shaped by personal encounters with gendered trauma and the unspoken ...
Syed Muhammad Zakir
Syed Muhammad Zakir is a Bangladeshi sculptor and interdisciplinary artist based in Dhaka. His work explores the human ego, our ...
Taysir Batniji
Taysir Batniji is a visual artist based in France, originally from Gaza. Working across photography, video, drawing, and installation, his ...
Thao Nguyen Phan
Thao Nguyen Phan is a multimedia artist working across video, painting, and installation, based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. ...
Walid Saddam
Walid Saddam is a visual artist and musician from Kishoreganj, Bangladesh. His practice traverses ecology, identity, and human consciousness, shaped ...
"…the first of a regular biennale, one that has become one of the highlights of the Asian calendar."
Workshops
Craft Master: Making Meaning in the Mess
Craft Master: Making Meaning in the Mess is a four-day intermediate workshop for learners who want to create meaningful, striking ...
To Die Laughing
It seems impossible to laugh in times of fear and repression, in times of genocide? And yet isn’t it what ...
Storytelling with Photography
This storytelling workshop focuses on developing long-term photography projects that go beyond single images to create cohesive, emotionally resonant visual ...
The Photobook Blueprint
Contemporary photographers seem to be in a revolutionary moment of communication. Everything is fast, and everyone wants to have visibility. ...
Hidden Frames
In this workshop, participants are invited to choose a short story, political article, family conversation, poem, dream, or a piece ...
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller
This week-long workshop invites participants to venture into the nocturnal cityscape of Dhaka, to wander its labyrinth of streets and ...
Watch, Listen, Read
‘Still pictures are not still’… Fore-seeing the effect of visual images
‘Still pictures are not still…’ said Mahasweta Devi. She consistently used the words stheer chitro (exact translation - ‘still images’). ...
Reflections on Chobi Mela, 2004 – 2019
Rupert Grey, media lawyer, photographer, adventurer, has been at every Chobi Mela since 2004, holding media law jam-sessions in Pathshala, ...
What Timelines Can Miss
The 2019 edition of Chobi Mela (on the eve of pandemic) premiered a project by Naeem Mohaiemen, “What Was Chobi ...
শতবর্ষে আমানুল হক
যমুনার তীরে, একশ বছর আগে জন্ম আমানুল হকের। পথে-প্রান্তরে, নদী-নাওয়ে ঘুরে বাংলার জীবন ও প্রকৃতিকে তিনি পরম মমতায় ক্যামেরায় তুলে ...
সুজান ম্যাইসিলাস ও নিকারাগুয়া
ম্যাগনামের প্রখ্যাত আলোকচিত্রী সুজান ম্যাসাইলাস, যার নিকারাগুয়া বিপ্লবের কাজ ইতিহাসের এক অনবদ্য দলিল। কেবল সংবাদ দাতা নন, তিনি মানুষের সাথে ...
সুখ-ছবি-আলাপ! সঙ্গে শাহীন দিল রিয়াজ
ছবিমেলার দশম অধিবেশনে শাহীন দিল রিয়াজের সাথে আলাপচারিতায় উঠে আসে তাঁর তথ্যচিত্র নির্মাণের দর্শন। 'জীবন জলেবেলে' ও 'শিল্প শহর স্বপ্নলোক'-এ ...
Pushpamala n. Chobi mela interview
Pushpamala N., originating from sculpture, uses photography and video to challenge conventional art forms. Through collaboration, she constructs new narratives ...
Chobi mela X fellows to explore the homogeneity and dissonance of parallel expansion
Curated by Zihan Karim, Chobi Mela X's Fellows program explores the theme "Place" through a "parallel universe" concept. Located in ...
The archivist and the editor
Archivist Prashant Panjiar and editor Sanjeev Saith discuss "Kanu's Gandhi," chronicling the Mahatma's final decade through his grandnephew's lens. Saith ...
Pushing the boundaries of the image with “Chobi mela fellows
Chobi Mela IX introduces its first fellowship program, "Chobi Mela Fellows," echoing the "Transition" theme and Bangladesh's evolving art scene. ...
Interview with nasir ali mamun
Nasir Ali Mamun, one of Chobi Mela IX’s featured artists, is interviewed by Nabil Rahman. He talks about working through ...
An ever-widening gyre
Curiosity drew me to Dhaka for Chobi Mela VIII, eager to explore Bangladesh's surge in socially-engaged photography. Amidst the city's ...
Shirin neshat: a soulful nomad in search of a home
Shirin Neshat’s work, like "Women of Allah," reflects a personal journey of "homecoming" to post-revolution Iran, blending politics with artistic ...
Ordinary girl | in conversation with cristina nuñez
"We live in an age of selfies," but Spanish photographer Cristina Nuñez delves deeper, using self-portraits as self-therapy. From heroin ...
Senses beyond vision: in conversation with Mahbubur rahman, guest curator of Chobimela VIII
Britto Arts Trust's Mahbubur Rahman, guest curator for Chobi Mela, infuses the traditionally medium-centric festival with a multidisciplinary approach. He ...
Bridging mediums: conversation between an architect and a photographer
Chobi Mela VIII collaborates with notable Bangladeshi architect Salauddin Ahmed as a guest curator, exploring the synergy between architecture and ...
What i’ll never forget
On the eve of his 2001 walima, the author rushed to Drik Gallery for the sudden relocation of the "1971 ...
Cristina nuñez brings the self-portrait experience® to Dhaka
Renowned Spanish artist Cristina Nuñez brings her transformative "The Self-Portrait Experience®" to Chobi Mela VIII. Through her exhibition "But Beautiful" ...
Shaping a vision with swapan parekh
Swapan Parekh, a pioneering Indian photographer, bridges documentary aesthetics with advertising. A World Press Photo winner, his "celebration of the ...
An interview with Graciela Iturbide
Graciela Iturbide, a celebrated Mexican photographer, found her calling after tragedy. Interviewed by Munem Wasif for Chobi Mela VII, she ...
The most celebrated photo event in Asia gears up for another extravaganza
Chobi Mela VIII, starting January 23, 2015, promises its finest edition yet. Featuring 33 diverse exhibits across Dhaka, from established ...
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