Every ordinary but inanimate object bearing the memories of Kalpana Chakma appears as a witness of the terrifying abduction moment of the rights activist on the early hours of June 12, 1996, in internationally acclaimed photographer Shahidul Alam’s innovative installation titled Searching for Kalpana Chakma, which is on display
at Drik Gallery in Dhanmondi.The powerful installation narrates the ‘brutal truth’ in such a powerful way that the visitors of the show can feel the ‘disappearance of dissenting voice’ from the face of the earth, which has been overlooked or ‘intentionally ignored’ by the successive governments for the past 17 years.
The photo artist, however, says that these materials are not any substantiate evidence to prove that Kalpana had been abducted at gunpoint by an army official named lieutenant Ferdous, the principal accused.
The installation, in fact, is a combination of various art forms including conventional and technically manipulated photographs, video clips, sound effects, and real life materials such as leaves and barks of trees, Kalpana’s everyday used elements along with a handmade map of the location made by social scientist Saydia Gulrukh.
Searching for Kalpana Chakma is the fourth in the series ‘No More’, a public awareness campaign of Drik, which was inaugurated by Kalpana’s elder brother Kalindi Kumar Chakma on Wednesday.
The show is based on Saydia Gulrukh’s research for years to extract the clue of the abduction from Kalpana’s home at Lalyaghona, Baghaichari in Rangamati.
The most interesting feature of the show is some unique technically manipulated photographs created by Alam using the high tech instruments in the sophisticated laboratories in the UK, Germany, Australia and Japan.
The viewers get various messages from the wonderful textures created on photographs of Kalpana’s ribbon, sandal, attire, mosquito net, pages of her diary and other personal belongings collected from her family and the leaves of the trees in the nearby areas.
One of such displayed manipulated photographs appears as a cosmic black hole, which can absorb anything. The caption of the photo states that it is a magnified view of a segment of bark of boroi tree next to which Kalpana was screaming, ‘dada morey basa [brother save me]’, as she was snatched away from her brothers.
Another fascinating texture has been created by Alam using cyan excitation and green radiation projected on a part of her sandal. The technically manipulated photograph projects the view that it is not the image of a rubber made sandal, which carried the weight of Kalpana but the image of the fossil under the deep sea, from where nothing can be traced anymore.
The magnified view of Kalapana’s orna [stole] in Alam’s photograph gives the impression of a barbed net to illustrate the view that the artist has pulled out brutal facts from the wreck.
‘Kalpana herself is a figment of our imagination in the project, whom we [Saydia and Shahidul] never met. I’ve tried to deliver the message that someone has been lost and also tried to produce tangible visuals of a scene that has been made intangible, over the passage of time, with the deliberate “loss” of crucial evidence, through the layers of bureaucracy that has allowed silt to collect,’ said Alam, the winner of numerous international awards.
‘As a photographer, I have extracted visual fragments using lights, filters and lenses to get the data to yield images. Working in Tokyo, using printing techniques not yet made public, I’ve rendered imageries on paper that describe in light and shade, what those silent witnesses have tried to say,’ he added.
Another manipulated photograph of the Bangla word ‘bhoy’ from Kalapana’s diary also attracts the viewers’ attention. ‘Through the show I’ve tried to give a glimpse of panic created amongst the “paharis” in the CHT by enforcing military,’ he said.
The viewers get a chance to transport themselves to the night of the ‘brutal incident’ through watching an innovative video clip, which contains loops of technically manipulated photographs of different layers of objects possessed by Kalapana along with the projected sound of the chirp of crickets to give an impression of the field through which Kalpana had been forcefully taken away.
Some conventional photographs of Kalpana’s brothers reproduced by Alam from the spots also give a full spectrum of ‘forensic’ options and shaped for interpretation in the show.
The installation also features some manipulated photographs of Kalapana collected from her family and some barks and leaves as live witnesses of the abduction.
‘I didn’t want to make the show like a museum by displaying some materials. Rather, as an artist, I’ve tried to communicate with the audience employing my imaginary expressions of the materials and objects,’ said Alam.
‘I don’t know whether anybody in the world has done such work before,’ said Alam, whose works have been exhibited at MOMA in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Royal Albert Hall in London and The Museum of Contemporary Arts in Tehran.
He further added that the installation has already got booking in many galleries abroad.
The installation show at Drik Gallery will go on for 10 days.
-With New Age input
