ashik ikbal
New member
international festival of photography, Bangladesh 2009
http://www.chobimela.org/
"Over sixty exhibitions, thirty-five participating nations, well over a thousand images, and over fifty visiting artists from Asia alone, are impressive statistics, but the emphasis on figures is misleading. The dozen or so workshops, the week-long sessions of presentations, debates, lectures and discussions, the portfolio reviews and the all night party, will perhaps be what the visitors remember the most. More significant is the bridge across continents through the live broadcast of these entire sessions. Especially the video conference between three outstanding individuals, Mahasweta Devi, Noam Chomsky and Stuart Hall, as they provide their take on 'Freedom'. The mobile exhibitions, now a trademark of the festival, where a mini Chobi Mela on ten rickshaw vans, plying the streets of Dhaka, will move the festival away from galleries to the more public spaces of football fields and open air markets. For in both the majority and minority worlds, across cultures and across nations, the class divide continues to be the biggest bridge to cross."
Shahidul Alam
Festival Director
http://www.chobimela.org/
"Over sixty exhibitions, thirty-five participating nations, well over a thousand images, and over fifty visiting artists from Asia alone, are impressive statistics, but the emphasis on figures is misleading. The dozen or so workshops, the week-long sessions of presentations, debates, lectures and discussions, the portfolio reviews and the all night party, will perhaps be what the visitors remember the most. More significant is the bridge across continents through the live broadcast of these entire sessions. Especially the video conference between three outstanding individuals, Mahasweta Devi, Noam Chomsky and Stuart Hall, as they provide their take on 'Freedom'. The mobile exhibitions, now a trademark of the festival, where a mini Chobi Mela on ten rickshaw vans, plying the streets of Dhaka, will move the festival away from galleries to the more public spaces of football fields and open air markets. For in both the majority and minority worlds, across cultures and across nations, the class divide continues to be the biggest bridge to cross."
Shahidul Alam
Festival Director