Photography exhibition ‘Random Harvests’ begins

A week-long photography exhibition titled ‘Random Harvests’ has begun on September 9 at Bangal Shilpalaya, Dhanmondi in the capital. The exhibition comprises of photographs, videos and memorabilia from G M M E Karim Archives.

The inaugural ceremony of the exhibition was held at the premises of Bengal Shilpalaya.  Former caretaker government adviser Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury, Dr Ainun Nishat Emeritus Professor at Brac University, Hasan Monsur, Managing Director, The Guide Tours and Iftikharul Karim, Former Ambassador, Govt of Bangladesh attended the exhibition as guests and unveiled the cover of a book featuring collection of photographs.

Partitioned into India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan (subsequently Bangladesh), British India has had a complex afterlife, both culturally and conceptually. After the political end of colonial rule in 1947, notwithstanding the trauma of Partition which led to one of the largest refugee crises in human history, the newly formed nation-states imagined themselves as progressive and egalitarian. G M M E Karim grew up as a colonial subject and was taking photographs in an era that immediately followed the Partition, when fractured societies were struggling with aspects of an emerging modernity. The slow, conscious and rigorous unfolding of decolonisation cast its long shadow throughout the twentieth century. Keeping in mind Karim’s time, his place and position in society, his visual records of landscapes, people, places, were at times sites of exoticized beauty. By casting a certain gaze, he memorialised postures of the native jute and tea workers, agriculturists, boatsmen, and tribal communities. The industrial growth of the fifties in Bangladesh (then the newly independent eastern wing of Pakistan) also found a place in his repertoire. Karim’s indefatigable delight in sports, dance and musical soirees, wildlife expeditions, family weddings, and Hollywood, are material traces of a complex, compelling and indubitable reality. As we nurse the scars and reflect on 75 years of Partition, Karim’s photographs and videos take on a new meaning in being direct testimonies, vital in first-hand authenticity.

The bits of videography by G M M E Karim that are available today are novel in their trajectories through several sites, employing several modes of travel, and witnessing the transformation of the collectivist socio-cultural milieu of the fifties. Therefore, it is not through the lens of any dominant narrative that would close the understanding of a complex picture, but through slices of an extended family’s travels, social orientations, outings, and personal interactions, that reveal new meanings of identities, both new and old, at the cusp of Partition.