Against erasure: Chobi Mela’s images of memory, loss and defiance

After a six-year hiatus, Chobi Mela has returned to Dhaka with a profound sense of purpose. This January, the International Festival of Photography transformed the city's exhibition centres into vibrant hubs for global visual culture.

Framing the event as a 'revival of dormant hopes,' organisers have delivered a program defined by exceptional curatorial mastery and a bold invitation to imagine a collective future.

The festival brings together "powerful" and "sensitive" photographic and visual works from five continents, alongside compelling contributions from Bangladeshi curators, researchers, visual artists, and photographers.

Visitors have described the experience as "deeply emotional" and "nostalgia-inducing". Each collection of photographs unfolds a story that transcends physical borders and specific contexts, offering intimate reflections on human existence and lived experiences shaped by adversity across the world.

Every photographic series carries a voice, echoing stories long buried beneath the surface of everyday life—stories that often remain unseen, unheard, and undocumented.

Curator Munem Wasif said: "Through these photographs, we wanted to trace the time we are going through right now—not only in Bangladesh, but also in other parts of the world, such as the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America."

"We reached out to artists and photographers across South Asia, the Middle East, and beyond who are tracing this time, the human experience, and the anxious and distressing conditions people are living through," he added.

In its 11th edition, which began on 16 January, Chobi Mela—organised by Drik and Pathshala—has brought together works by at least 45 artists from 21 countries. These are exhibited across five venues in Dhaka: Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, the Bangladesh National Parliament, the Bangladesh National Museum, DrikPath Bhobon, and Alliance Française de Dhaka. The festival will continue until the last day of the month.

This year, the festival adopted a theme that resonates with the phonetic sound of "re". It symbolises collective imagination and the "revival" of latent hopes, "rebuilding" from the destruction of humanity, the "regeneration" of a primordial future world, the "restoration" of damaged ecosystems and biodiversity, and acts of defiance in the face of distress.

Festival founder Shahidul Alam said, "Chobi Mela reminds us that there is such a thing as the majority world—with different aspirations, different needs, and different modes of storytelling."

Recognised as the largest photography festival in South Asia, Chobi Mela began its journey in 2000 and paused after 2019 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Festival secretary Tazri Ahmed said the festival has resumed with renewed hope.

The festival is designed as both an exhibition and an event-based platform. Alongside 45 exhibitions curated across five venues, it features group and solo shows, artist talks, panel discussions, lectures, and film screenings. Workshops led by photographers and artists are also scheduled to engage enthusiasts. A children's school and a fellowship programme have been provided for nine photographers.

Exhibitions that unfold human experience

Galleries at the Chitrashala Bhaban of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy are curated to resonate with echoes of stories from war-torn Palestine and Sudan; the climate crisis; social, ecological, and cultural damage across the world; and the memories and wounds of the displaced and the disappeared.

A series titled But a Wound that Fights, curated by Munem Wasif and Sarker Protick, portrays the memories, nightmares, wounds, and trauma of people who lost their habitats, were displaced, or disappeared.

Curators say these works invite viewers to assemble new forms of life—not by searching for a lost origin, but by nurturing possibilities within the cracks. The exhibition asks how artistic practice can become a form of care in times of disappearance.

In another gallery, a large portrait of a Palestinian woman with one eye immediately draws attention. She looks at the viewer as if she were born that way, quietly sending a message to the world: that Palestine has its own past, its own stories of glory and defiance, destroyed by bullets yet forced to move forward, carrying hope as if nothing has happened.

The curation titled (un)learning Palestine, embodying solidarity, as written on the theme board, invites people across the world to unlearn and learn anew. In the face of unrelenting violence, it seeks to understand the Palestinian struggle as one for justice, dignity, and liberation—echoed in many local struggles across the Global South.

Meanwhile, at the Bangladesh National Museum, the newly built Nalinikanta Bhattashali Gallery has been transformed into a black-and-white Bengal Delta. Across its walls, photographs by pioneering Bangladeshi creative photographer Amanul Huq—taken in agrarian and riverine Bangladesh during the 1960s and the Liberation War—are carefully curated, allowing visitors to imagine and inhabit that time.

At Drik Gallery, an exhibition titled Rights to Passage, curated by Tanvi Mishra, features photographic and visual works. Another gallery presents works by the nine fellows of this year's Chobi Mela Fellowship, titled Dheu, curated by Shohrab Jahan.

On the outskirts of the Bangladesh National Parliament building, photographs by artist Jannatul Mawa are displayed in a solo exhibition titled Women in the July Uprising: Essential Then—Why Erased Now? The exhibition portrays women's contributions during the July Uprising, highlighting how they raised their voices despite threats, built networks, devised strategies, and pushed the movement forward.

Works by Berlin-based Pakistani artist Bani Abidi are also curated under the title The Reassuring Hand Gestures of Big Men, Small Men, All Men at the Alliance Française de Dhaka gallery.