Exhibition
A DEPARTURE FROM THE OBVIOUS
The photographs look at history through the lens of ordinary people. Photos: Prabir Das
The September 21-26 photo exhibition at the Liberation War Museum was air-conditioning for the eye, and if you are susceptible to history, the soul. It showcased an unusually interesting mix of photos, giving a sense of what museums and art galleries can do when they depart, even a little, from the usual.
The Flag of Independence by Haroon Habib.
Take for example, Home is Where the Train is — a photograph illustrating a decommissioned train on the tracks of Walton Station in Lahore in the post- partition days in 1947. It shows refugees relaxing on wooden cots next to their makeshift home in the abandoned cars of a train. Their carefree attitude at this particular moment is as true as the horrors and needless bloodshed of the partition.
Lived Stories, Everyday lives is a travelling exhibition of some 27 digital image reproductions of photographs and prints from various private and institutional archival collections in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It showcases images from private collection highlighting the art of archiving and its intrinsic value to daily life. The theme: looking at history through the lens of the lives of the common man.
This art of finding the 'extraordinary' in the 'ordinary' is captured by Faiz's Letter, a reproduction of fragments of a letter Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote to his wife from jail where he was incarcerated in the early 1950 for his role in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy. The letter touches on personal relationship, all the while never forgetting Faiz's role as a man of historical destiny.
Home is Where the Train is.
The Learned Sisters of Agra is a photograph of seven sisters from Agra, , born between 1935 and 1946, holding their degrees with pride. At that time, women were photographed in this manner to prove that they were educated. Some of these images were used as matrimonial pictures. Sarita Ramamoorthy, programme manager of the Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange, which in collaboration with the Liberation War Museum organised the exhibition says, “We did two exhibitions in India and one in Nepal. In India we took the exhibition to a small village in Ludhiana where people were excited to have something like this in their village. A lot of people showed up.”
These photos tell stories of people who are often bypassed by the 'great' narratives of history offered through history books, and the media. Uncle Bunnu and His Sisters, a photograph from around 1910 shows Alec Cordeiro, a Goan Christian and his sisters who lived in Karachi. The sisters left Karachi right before the partition in 1947 but Bunnu stayed back. He never married, held a job for long, and saw his sisters after 1947. He died alone in 1984. To his sisters living hundreds of miles away in India, the memory of Bunnu was a warm, breathing presence as real as the time they were together.
Wedding Without a Bride is a reproduction of an invitation for a wedding anniversary from 1920. The invitation was from the couple's son in keeping with the tradition in Tamil Nadu where sons and daughters perform this ceremony for their parents. However, the invitation card misses to mention the name of the bride!
Uncle Bunnu and His Sisters (L) and Wedding Without a Bride (R).
Four photos—two by Haroon Habib, paid tribute to the struggles and sacrifices of the ordinary men and women in 1971. The Flag of Independence shows a little girl holding the Bangladeshi Liberation War flag in celebration of freedom. The photograph was taken at a sugar mill colony in Dewangonj, northern Jamalpur District by Haroon Habib, minutes after the surrender of Pakistani military in on 16 December 1971.
In Portrait of a Martyr, nine family photos of Shaheed Baqui were showcased. He joined the liberation war as a university student and became a fierce fighter before being captured and killed by the Pakistani military. He is gone but his dream of a better country for all lives on.
All these images are at once historical and contemporary— transcending geographical and cultural boundaries.
Mofidul Hoque, a trustee of the museum says, “At first glance, these photos may not look anything special. But if you look closely, you can see that they carry significant messages through their mundane daily lives.”
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