The New Nation - Internet Edition

Art & Culture Report

“Could you please bring a cup of tea for the guest?" - This was the starting point of a conversation photographer Saiful Huq Omi recorded. Omi was interviewing Nazmun Nahar Mukul, President of one of the Water Management Association in Patuakhali. The request does not sound unusual, yet in our country - particularly in rural areas - we do not hear a wife asking her husband to make tea that often. This was a sign of change, the photographer observed.

"It was not easy! During the journey I met women who have achieved the identity of equality. They do not think they are less capable than any men and more importantly the men around them have started to feel the same. I met people who believe they are strong and have enough potential to bring about changes. It was the journey, which has produced an enormous sense of respect in my own mind for the hardworking government people working day and night to improve the lives of the have-nots. I met field workers who wake up with the sun, travel mile after mile from one village to another, talk to the people in person, know their problems and at the end of the day make the people realise their own strength - the strength to solve their own problems the strength to change their own future," described Saiful Huq Omi about his solo photography exhibition titled' Partnership in Practice' held at Drik Gallery in the capital. The exhibition was inaugurated on May 1 and was ended on May 10.

Integrated Planning for Sustainable Water Management (IPSWAM) and Char Development and Settlement Project (CDSP) organised the exhibition.

Bea Ten Tusscher, Ambassador of the Netherlands inaugurated the exhibition. Omi decided to record the changes of people's participation in coastal region of the country. For the project he went to Khulna, Patuakhali and Noakhali for one month. Around 10 days in each area photos were taken by him highlighted different aspects of change, the most profound being gender equation.

Speciality of the exhibition was that all photos at the exhibition were black and white. According to Omi, "Black and white is my preferred medium. I feel that colour is sometimes overpowering and it becomes the subject itself."

Asked what inspired him to take on this project, Omi said his friend Andrew Jenkins, team leader of the IPSWAM, often talked about the social changes in the areas he worked.

Photograph of a labourer, with his spade, ready to strike was quite dramatic. The sky with an abundance of dark clouds in the background looked ominous but the worker sports a faint smile.

Another photo framed a middle-aged man apparently content with his pigeon. An image showed dusk settling down on Boyar Char - man or cattle - time for everyone to return home.

Photographs also brought in despair and calamity in the making. A photo showed erosion in 'Caring Char.'

The Government's Ministry of Water Resources in cooperation with the Netherlands Government undertook the IPSWAM programme. The project is implemented by the Third Planning Directorate (DP-III) of the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) in assistance with the consultants Arcadis-Euroconsult of the Netherlands and Socioconsult of Bangladesh. The exhibition will likely go to the UK and the Netherlands soon.