Through his exhibition Kalpana’s Warriors, Bangladeshi artist Shahidul Alam has portrayed people who still question the government on the abduction of Kalpana Chakma, a social activist. By S Mallik
Not many of us know about Kalpana Chakma, the human rights activist from Bangladesh, who had the courage to protest and criticise against the repression imposed by the Bangladeshi Army. She also worked actively for the rights of indigenous women until June 12, 1996. Hours before the general election of Bangladesh, she was abducted allegedly by members of the Bangladeshi Army.
Almost a decade and a half later in 2013, Bangladeshi photographer and writer, Shahidul Alam, decided to tell the story of Kalpana. “My photography and activism have always been about dealing with social subjects and Kalpana Chakma is a part of it. I have always been bewitched. Over a period of time I realised that it is a story that I must tell. But I also had to choose a visual language which was different from the traditional one,” he said.
His latest exhibition Kalpana’s Warriors is the third of the series that Alam has done on Chakma. “This is the third of the series of exhibitions that I have done on Kalpana. The first one I did in 2013 and it opened on June 12, the day of her disappearance. And at that time I used forensic technique which was based on research work I did in Bangladesh, Britain and Germany. The work was produced in Brisbane, Australia. The work relied metaphorically on the silent witnesses of the crime. I took the path that Kalpana walked on her last journey and these were the objects that I looked at as an artist and a forensic investigator,” Alam elaborated.
The next show that he did in 2013 was on her personal artefacts and had her muddied shoes, her diary and also the media reports.
Kalpana’s Warriors brings together portraits of those who have continued to question the government action. The photographs are printed on straw mats, which are part of the everyday lives of hill people. “Kalpana had straw mats and I combined that with fire, because the military used to burn their villages, and the laser device, which is used by the garment industry. A part of my campaign includes work on the garment industry so I decided to utilise that element as well. And then it requited quite extensive reverse engineering, to work out the technique necessary to convert a conventional photographic image into the format of the laser device, which would work on the straw mats,” the artist explained.
It takes plenty of time for Alam to put up one exhibition because all the works are based on extensive research. “The actual production is not that difficult as the process. It is quite extensive,” he said and added, “All the works in the series are photographs produced using different techniques.”