Only a few days before the scheduled opening of his retrospective “Singed but not Burnt” on July 17 at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), Noida, Bangladeshi photographer and dissenter, Shahidul Alam has voluntarily withdrawn his works from the exhibition.
“As an artist, journalist and human rights worker, I wish to express solidarity with the artists who note that in India ‘government-run cultural institutions have become instruments of state-sponsored propaganda rather than spaces for critical thinking’. The situation is no different in my own country Bangladesh… There are two areas of concern. The clear endorsement by Ms Nadar of art events which are part of the propaganda machinery of the current Indian regime, and the censure of people who make legitimate critiques of such associations,” said Alam in a public statement to The Indian Express, sharing excerpts from his letter to Kiran Nadar on the withdrawal.
The seasoned and well-acclaimed photographer’s statement refers to Nadar’s involvement as advisor for the exhibition “Jana Shakti: A Collective Power” at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, which marked 100 episodes of ‘Mann Ki Baat’, a monthly radio address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The letter specifically makes mention of the termination of Sandip K Luis from the post of Manager, Curatorial Research and Publications, at the KNMA, following his statement on social media, posted on May 15, that was dubbed critical of the exhibition and Nadar’s association with it.
Interestingly, while the KNMA refrained from commenting on Alam’s exhibition and Luis’ termination, several members of the art fraternity have expressed solidarity with Alam.
“To dismiss a museum employee for a…post made in his individual capacity points to a high-handed way of functioning…” reads an excerpt from the statement issued by “concerned individuals” on Kafila media portal.
Who is Shahidul Alam?
Wikipedia tells us how this talented photographer born in 1955 is a photojournalist from neighbouring Bangladesh, also a teacher and social activist, jailed in that country for his dissenting views. He has been a photographer for over 40 years and “his photographs have been published in almost every major western media outlet”.
Alam has founded the Drik Picture Library in 1989, the Pathsahala South Asian Media Institute in Dhaka in 1998, “which has trained hundreds of photographers”. As organiser of the Chobi Mela International Photography Festival in 1999, Alam encouraged peers in the art of photography. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Sunderland in the UK. His publications include Nature’s Fury (2007) and My Journey as a Witness (2011).[2]
He has been recipient of the Shipakala Padak, a national award by the President of Bangladesh and in 2014, after which he was awarded the Humanitarian Award from the Lucie Awards in 2018.
Not surprisingly, in a South Asia increasingly intolerant of dissent and independent artistic views and creations, on August 5, 2018, Alam was arrested and detained shortly after giving an interview to Al Jazeera and posting live videos on Facebook that criticized the government’s violent response to the road safety protests in that country that year. Several international humanitarian organisations and news media called for his release without charge. He was finally granted bail on November 20, 2018, over 3 months after incarceration. He was selected as one of the Persons of the Year by Time Magazine in 2018.
Crossfire (according to Wikipedia) is a series of photographs taken by Shahidul Alam, a Bangladeshi photographer, activist, and teacher. The exhibit was curated by one of Alam’s colleagues, Jorge Villacorta, and was completed in 2010 and displayed at the Drik Gallery in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The photographs show locations and objects where extrajudicial killings happened because of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) Human Rights Watch has called RAB a “death squad” because of these reported killings. RAB was established in 2004 as a paramilitary force to combat gangsters and thugs in the streets, but in late 2007, the battalion was accused of over 350 extrajudicial killings and the torturing of hundreds more.
In another act of repression, before the exhibit opened to the public, RAB and local police closed the Drik Gallery because they believed the photographs would “create anarchy”
Related:
Bangladesh: Imaging 71 with Shahidul Alam