Culture Desk
Chobi Mela, the largest and most celebrated photography event of Asia is now ongoing at 11 venues of Dhaka. The two weeklong festival will continue till February 5. The theme of the festival is 'Intimacy' and is featuring more than 30 artists from more than 20 countries across the world.
As part of the Chobi Mela VIII, noted photographers Cristina Nu?ez and Max Pinckers's images are now on display at Drik Gallery in Dhanmondi. Born in Figueras (Spain) in 1962, Cristina Nu?ez is a self-taught artist-photographer whose work has been published and exhibited internationally. Her work 'But Beautiful' is now exhibited at Drik Gallery. Following a troubled adolescence with drugs, Cristina Nu?ez has been taking self-portraits since 1988 as a form of self therapy, to explore her personal and creative identity and to raise her self-esteem, especially in moments of crisis. In 2005 Nu?ez built The Self-Portrait Experience, her own method to explore one's own inner life using the self portrait. Since 2005 Nu?ez teaches her self-portrait method in workshops.
The other photographer whose works are being exhibited in Drik Gallery is Max Pinckers from Belgium.
It needs to mention that one of his photographs has been used as the theme photo Chobi Mela VIII. His work 'Will They Sing Like Raindrops or Leave Me Thirsty' is a photo story visually inspired by the culture of Bollywood ? with its dramatised body language, passionate romance, and clashes between tradition and contemporary mores. Pinckers was born in Belgium and raised itinerantly-in Indonesia, Australia, India, and Singapore-before returning to Belgium to study. He has travelled to India to photograph on multiple occasions; this is his second project set in Mumbai.
After the Drik Gallery visit, the next two events of the day was at Goethe-Institut. The curated slideshow by Eliseo Barbara 'She's There' was held at 6pm followed by an Artist Talk by Cristina Nu?ez at 7pm. Eliseo Barb?ra is the founder and director of Most Artists, a photographers and creative storytellers agency. Eliseo is also involved in several exhibitions, publications, consultancy and teaching projects.
January 26, the 4th day of Chobi Mela VIII commenced its activities at Goethe-Institut at 10:30am featuring Shamoon Zamir's lectures on Edward Curtis and Siobhan Riordan's lectures on Surveillance at 11:15am on the same venue. Following the day, the Gallery Visit event on rickshaw from Dhanmondi to Karwan Bazar Daily Star-Bengal Arts Precinct was held at 4pm where exhibitions of German photographer Andrea Diefenbach's 'HIV/AIDS in Odessa' and Singaporean photographer Sean Lee's 'Two People' are ongoing. Scheduled for two weeks, there will be 33 exhibitions, 12 workshops, 2 days of portfolio reviews and several artist talks, lectures and presentations at Chobi Mela VIII. January 27, the fifth day of Chobi Mela VIII is again going to be an eventful day. Talk by Nayantara Gurung Kakshapati on 'Representations of Nepal' and 'Staging the image - assimilations from previous issues of pix quarterly'-a Lecture by Tanvi Mishra will be held in the morning.