Grand fiesta of photography

Young Madonna by Pedro Meyer

Opening with the exhibition of legendary Norwegian photographer Morten Krogvold, this year's festival presents photographic works on the theme Resistance, which artists have interpreted in the widest sense possible. One of the objectives of the festival is to discover the current state of photography in the region while placing present day photographic practice in a broader international context. The nature of work ranges from fine art photography to conceptual practices to photojournalism, industrial photography and digital imaging.

The whole event features 38 exhibitions of about 90 photographers from 17 countries of the world. Among these 10 are mobile displays and nine are group exhibitions. The exhibitions will take place at seven venues of the city--Alliance Française, Goethe Institut, British Council, Russian Cultural Centre, Muldhara International Centre, Drik Gallery and Abahani ground.

The festival also contains workshops and seminars on various aspects of photography, lectures, presentations and six film shows. After the opening ceremony, the first of the seminars, conducted by Pedro Meyer, will take place at Alliance Française. Besides, Tay Kay Chin of Singapore, Dick Doughty of the USA, Manit Sriwanichpoom of Thailand, Tarek Al-Ghoussein, of the UAE, Rupert Grey and Liz Wells of the UK, Usha Titikshu of Nepal, Morten Krogvold of Norway and others will present different seminars and lectures.

The film shows feature Cuban Trisha Ziff, UK documentary film Injustice, James Nachtwey's two-hour film War Photographer, Indian Joshy Joseph's film Wearing the Face and English Gideon Mendel's films on HIV/AIDS.

The opening ceremony will honour four legendary Bangladeshi photographers--Golam Kashem Daddy, Alokchitracharya Monzoor Alalm Beg, Amanul Haque and Shamsul Islam Almazi.

A ten-day focus of the festival will be 'Little Asia'--an exhibition of Asian photographers from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Iran and host Bangladesh. The largest exhibition of the festival will showcase 1068 photographs at the Abahani ground at Dhanmondi.

The Chobi Mela III will run till December 23.