#abirabdullah

Bangladesh -

The Alexia Foundation has announced that the winner of the 2013 Alexia Professional Grant: Abir Abdullah. The Alexia Foundation promotes the power of photojournalism to give voice to social injustice, to respect history lest we forget it and to understand cultural difference as our strength, not our weakness. The grant, in the amount of $15,000 will be used by Abdullah to produce his final project documenting the continuous threat fire presents for the working class communities of Dhaka, Bangladesh in basti (slums), garment factories and shopping malls

  Says Abdullah:

“Corrupt officials who ignore building codes, and greedy businessmen who bypass fire protection have ensured that both home and work spaces are death traps. Because the city has grown too quickly, lack of fire safety precaution is everywhere.

The impact, however, is most visible in the garment industry of Bangladesh, which is also the country’s most successful business sector, earning $19 billion from exports last year alone. Factory fires have killed 600 garment workers since 2005.

Global headlines came with the horrific fire at Tazreen Fashion factory in November 2012. At least 112 people were confirmed dead in the fire (and activists claim more bodies were “disappeared” by authorities), making it the deadliest factory fire in the nation’s history… 53 workers bodies could not be identified due to severe burns and were buried in mass grave.

  Body of an unidentified female garments worker lies down on the floor of a under constructed mosque. The death toll rises to 112 and hundreds were injured after the fire incident due to electrical short circuit at night on 24 November, fire service reports. Nischintapur, Savar outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Bangladesh - 

Emaho got into a free-wheeling tête-à-tête with the legendary award-winning Bangladeshi photographer, Shahidul Alam to pry beyond his politics. This interview was conducted in the month of February, 2013 during the Chiang Mai Documentary Arts Festival, Thailand.

  Manik : In all your past interviews, you have mentioned how photography happened to you, so I will not ask that question, but what is photography for you? And your relationship with politics?

Shahidul : I am a very political man and the reason I took up photography was because of my political position. Being concerned about the social situation in my country and globally, I happened to stumble into photography and discovered what a powerful tool it was; which happens to be the only reason why I practice it. I am fond of photography, I enjoyed images but at the end of the day that for me is not the point of the exercise. I continued to use photography in whatever way I can. Largely because, I see the strength of the medium and I recognise the potential. Having said that I think – I have said this before – that if tomorrow it ceases to effective, I’ll have no qualms about giving it up and taking something new.

That for me is the point of the exercise.  And when I am talking of politics I am certainly not talking about party politics and looking at the social spectrum within which we live, where the rhetoric is about egalitarianism about social equality… but there does not happen to be a single government in the world that I know of right now that believes in that rhetoric …or at least practices that rhetoric …despite the fact that it espouses it constantly. So, I at one stage began to take stock and realised that the major changes in social terms were politics, media, education and culture. I am politically active, politically engaged, though I am not involved in party politics. But I insist upon working in all the other three areas to ensure that there is sufficient pressure upon the politicians, to ensure that people who are governed have a say in the process of governance.

  Padma’s Ilish (the Hilsha of River Padma), is the ultimate in fish for the connoisseur. The sail boats are fast disappearing, as is a way of life. Bangladesh. Shahidul Alam/Drik