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Documenting Bangladesh and beyond over 20 years

Retrospective exhibition at Drik

Karim Waheed
•iWenty years can be a lifetime, but it can also be just the beginning. An early winner of the Global Bangemann Challenge (later known as the Stockholm Challenge), Drik has been a pioneer in several aspects. It set up DrikTap.'the first nationwide email network in Bangladesh; the first Internet portal for Bangla-desh at h 11p : / / bd . orientation.com; a human rights portal at www.banglarights.net and continues to lead the alternative media, by live webstreaming key Bangladeshi events to a global audience.
However, it is in the field of photography that Drik has made Bangladesh a global leader. Drik, through its education wing Pathshala, The South Asian Media Academy and Photography Institute, ^as produced photographers who have gone on to win majc^jafemational awards „ and acclaim. ,
According to the organisation, it is built upon the concept of social justice. Over the last two decades, Drik has
played a key role in the civil rights movements in Bangladesh, and in the process it has also made an impact in the global arena.
On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, Drik arranged a retrospective photo exhibition. The exhibition, inaugurated on September 6 by renowned Indian photographer Raghu Rai. was held at Drik Gallen’ in Dhanmondi.
Though the exhibition features works of Drik photographers and gives the viewer an idea of the agency's functions since its inception, the collection is more than anything else a photographic documentation of Bangladesh and beyond -- achievements, mishaps, changes et al.
The first image at the exhibition is of an indigenous home in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Taken by Shahidul /Mam (for an Oxfam report, 1989), the black and white photograph shows an ■fndigeirous woman, with her* back 'to the camera, busy weaving. A baby in a cradle is at the centre. An older child standing close to the woman.
Majority of the photos on
display are by the veteran photographer who set up Drik and is the managing director of the agency at present.
Another black and white photo by Alam (for British Medical Journal, 1991) shows havoc caused by Hood on a personal level: a man wading in waist-high water and a woman sitting on what perhaps their lied; all their belongs are on the makeshift raft.
A powerful photo (B&W) by Alam harks back to a defini-
tive period in the history of Bangladesh; a woman casting her vote behind a curtain, during the first election held after the fall of Ershad. The image was published in Disrupted Borders (1993).
A colour photograph by Md. Main Uddin documents Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ■©naaa-oftM ftifiWii delegation Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma (now the chairman of CHT Regional Council) sharing a light moment after signing the
CHT Peace Accord in 1997. The image was published in New In ternationalist (2001).
One of Abir Abdullah's works on display is a portrait (colour) of a young garment-worker. By 2006, the Bangladeshi garment industry had directly employed 2-3 million people; 70 per cent of 'them were worrieri.The photo was published in Far Eastern Economic Review (2003).
A vintage piece by Golam Kasem Daddy (1894-1998) was also included in the collection. The image, shot in 1926, shows two young girls from Midnapore, West Bengal. Golam Kasem was the earliest photographer of Bangladesh and the eldest member of Drik. The photo was taken using glass negatives, which were glass plates with light sensitive emulsion fixed onto them with a binder. The black and white image was published in New Internationalist (2007).
Shehab Uddin's piece, published in Der Spiegel (2008), shows Laily Begum at work. Laily is the first user of the Village Phone service launched by Grameen Telecom. With the phone, she began a cell phone service business and eventually accumulated enough funds to own a dairy farm.
These images and more truly demonstrate tire changing face of Bangladesh and how Drik witnessed it.