In contexts shaped by conflict, repression, and collective trauma, artists often develop practices that function not only as forms of expression but also as strategies of survival, resistance, and remembrance. This talk brings together three artists from Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Sudan whose work emerges from lived experiences of political violence, disappearance, and war. Rather than offering detached commentary, their practices are rooted in proximity, shaped by conditions of uncertainty, censorship, and loss.
Ri’s work reflects life under Myanmar’s military regime, where artistic practice becomes a careful negotiation of visibility and risk. Johan’s long-term engagement with families of the politically disappeared in Bangladesh, including collaborations with institutions such as Mayer Daak, demonstrates how photography and activism can sustain memory in the face of official erasure.
Muhammad Salah’s work explores the fractures of Khartoum, shaped by the conflict between the army and rebel forces, as well as by his own experiences growing up amid instability and violence.
Against Erasure
Munem Wasif
Munem Wasif is a Dhaka-based artist, curator, and educator whose practice explores memory, place, and identity through photography and video. A co-curator of Chobi Mela since its eighth edition, he has curated major survey exhibitions on Anwar Hossain (2015), Nasir Ali Mamun (2017), and Rashid Talukder (2019). Along with Tanzim Wahab, he co-edited two editions of Kamra, a Bangla anthology on photography.
Wasif was a Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin fellow (2020–21) and received the 2023 Robert Gardner Fellowship for research on indigo in Bengal. Currently, he teaches at Pathshala South Asian Media Institute in Dhaka.
Memories of Disappearance
Mosfiqur Rahman Johan
Mosfiqur Rahman Johan is an anthropologist and documentary photographer based in Bangladesh. His work explores humanitarian, environmental, and socio-political realities across Bangladesh, combining ethnographic research and long-term immersion to build layered narratives of resistance, resilience, memory, and belonging.
Johan’s recent collaboration is with Maayer Daak — a collective for justice, where relatives of the disappeared come together to share grief, preserve the stories of their loved ones, and resist state violence. His projects address enforced disappearance, the death penalty, displacement, police brutality, and environmental degradation through research-driven visual storytelling.
His visual journal reflects on the psychological impact of losing one’s space, challenging dominant discourses on state violence, gender, and development. His work has been exhibited, awarded, and featured internationally.
Between The Niles
Muhammad Salah Abdulaziz
Muhammad Salah Abdulaziz is a Sudanese photographer and curator based in Berlin.
His work explores cities, relationality, and the organisation, distribution, and experience of physical and psychic spaces, working through an intuitive, responsive process. He synthesises various components into larger bodies of work, maintaining a slow pace of examination that fosters intimate engagement with explored themes.
Abdulaziz holds a B.A. in Linguistics and an M.A. in African Verbal and Visual Arts, specialising in curatorial studies and media in Africa. His academic background both informs and influences his practice.
What We Remember, When We Remember
Ri
Ri is a lens-based visual artist from Myanmar whose practice explores queer identity, intimacy, and belonging. Their work weaves together visual poetry, geopolitical landscapes, and narratives shaped by Myanmar’s complex political realities, tracing personal and collective experiences of vulnerability and resistance within shifting social terrains.
Ri’s work has been exhibited internationally at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Jakarta Photo Festival, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Verzasca Foto Festival (Switzerland), and Asia Art Biennale (Taiwan). In 2024, Ri completed a 50-day residency in Switzerland supported by Pro Helvetia New Delhi and was selected for the Joop Swart Masterclass by the World Press Photo Foundation.