Photographer-activist Shahidul Alam appeals to a shared identity and experience

The personal choices and political aesthetic of Shahidul Alam define his extensive body of work. Here ‘work’ embodies three-decades dedicated to reflecting on life as a photographer, publisher, writer, mentor, but most of all, an activist. As the founder of Drik Picture Library, Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, Chobi Mela in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Alam has put the debate around the importance of art interventions to a good rest. In response to Alam’s critical take on the Bangladesh government’s treatment to road-safety protests, the state authority incarcerated him for 107 days from August 5-November 20, 2018.

For many, the normalcy around the rippling effect of disproportionate distribution of power prompts apathy, yet for a selected few, it is a cause not to be turned blind to. Alam reckons with the latter, who does not wish to equate the progress of human society with social inequality, economic disparity and cultural intolerance. Instilling a need to rise against the atrocities of totalitarian rule, Alam seeks social collectivism over alienation around us.

“I made a conscious decision to become an artist and a media practitioner because I recognised the power of the medium. Politics is the reason I make art, and the aesthetics contribute to the effectiveness of its engagement. A politically significant body of work, which people do not respond to, has clearly failed in its objective, regardless of the reasons for its ineffectiveness.”

“Style and aesthetics are merely part of (a) toolkit. I am a storyteller, and the vocabulary I use is based on the audience I am speaking to, and the context in which the story is being told.”

“Drik Picture Library was set up as a platform, which would allow local storytellers to tell their own stories. Until that point, stories about countries like Bangladesh, which we prefer to call Majority World countries, were told largely by white western photographers. Our initial challenge was to establish our own identity. To move away from the stereotypes that had characterised us, such as disasters and starving children. However, we also recognised the issues of inequality in our own community that had to be addressed.”

“Unless people resist, the powerful will always have their way. Our lack of resistance has little to do with lack of awareness. Having worked all across the globe, I find Bangladeshis far more aware than many. The average farmer in the field of a remote village in Bangladesh, for instance, is far more aware of his rights and realities, and has a more mature worldview, than the average farmer in the fields of the US.”

“The rights of minorities and the disenfranchised, freedom of expression, jail reform, and more recently, resistance to the draconian Digital Security Act, are stories we are working on. We work with other artists, activists, writers, and defenders of freedom, collectively using words, song, dance and humour, the entire gamut of artistic and journalistic expression, to combat inequality and injustice.”

“We have integrity and creativity, and we will triumph. But sacrifices will have to be made. We will need to move away from our zones of comfort and take to the streets, the camera today is far more powerful than it has ever been, and with smartphones being freely available, combined with the internet – governments are left with no room to hide away from its digital citizens. The Black Lives Matter Movement may never have taken off had it not been for that fateful video.”