Chobi Mela XI Review: Can We Start Over?

Why It Matters

Chobi Mela signals a resurgence of socially engaged visual art in South Asia, positioning photography as a catalyst for political discourse and cultural healing. Its diverse program demonstrates how image‑making can document resistance while shaping future narratives.

Key Takeaways

• 58 artists from 18 countries showcase at 11th edition
• Theme ‘Re’ urges renewal after pandemic and 2024 uprising
• Works blend documentary, staged photography, and oral histories
• Exhibitions confront land dispossession, migration, and border politics
• Festival highlights photography’s role in activist visual storytelling

Pulse Analysis

The 11th edition of Chobi Mela, Dhaka’s flagship photography festival, opened on Jan. 16 and runs through Jan. 31, marking the first large‑scale cultural gathering since the COVID‑19 shutdown and the July 2024 civic uprising. Curated by Munem Wasif and Sarker Protick under the banner “Re”, the program positions renewal as both a creative imperative and a political statement.

With 58 artists representing 18 nations, the festival spreads across public venues and the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, offering talks, workshops, and film screenings that invite local audiences to engage with global visual discourses. A standout is Ritual Inhabitual’s *Oro Verde*, a mytho‑documentary that chronicles the Purépecha community’s successful expulsion of loggers, drug cartels, and avocado‑driven land grabs in Michoacán. The work’s staged tableaux—camouflage fighters, half‑avocado symbols, and a suspended woman—replace passive reportage with active resistance. Similarly, *Songs of the Shore* amplifies the voices of Assam’s Miya Muslims through testimonies, voter registers, and poetry, exposing state‑sanctioned statelessness. Installations such as Sheida Soleimani’s *Ghostwriter* and Mong Mong Shay’s *Nothing can heal the wound* blend personal exile narratives with experimental collage, underscoring photography’s capacity to fuse memory, protest, and speculative futures.

Chobi Mela’s emphasis on “begin again” resonates beyond the exhibition walls, signaling a shift in South Asian visual culture toward activist‑driven practice. By foregrounding archival material—from Lala Rukh’s feminist pamphlets to Amanul Huq’s mid‑20th‑century documentary series—the festival bridges historic struggle with contemporary crises, reinforcing photography’s archival authority. For collectors and institutions, the event highlights a growing market for socially engaged imagery, while policymakers may view the festival as a barometer of civic resilience. As digital saturation deepens, Chobi Mela demonstrates that curated, context‑rich photography can still disrupt narratives and inspire collective re‑imagining.