Chobi Mela - International Festival of Photography, Bangladesh, 2021

News Desk: The exhibition is between 12 February - 21 February 2021 (11AM - 8 PM everyday). For details see program below. The event has a physical gallery and a virtual presence.

Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography is an international festival of photography and the first of its kind in South Asia. It started in 2000 and takes place every 2 years. It is organised by Drik Picture Library Ltd. and Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. The eleventh edition of Chobi Mela will be held from February 12-21, 2021.

The 2021 festival will look at "how art attempts to surmount the limits of present-day democracies with diversity, at a moment when citizens understand that states, left in the hands of exploitative forces, have failed in protecting their rights. How can we bring ‘performative democracy’ to the present time – so we can understand its value and experience its intensity in an art space?" The festival will highlight the spontaneous actions of critical citizenship and offer an emancipatory experience with an array of materials - photography narratives, mixed-media, archival documents, live performance - sensorial and articulate, intuitive and conceptual, testing and pushing the boundaries of form. The festival will integrate the physical with digital. The 2021 edition also looks beyond the recognised limits of each media, testing organic possibilities in a hyper-tech world with social-media radio projects and live-stream events.