[Reader-list] Outside Whale w/ Bidoun & Shahidul Alam

Mon Oct 23 23:21:30 IST 2006

This is a conversation I did for BIDOUN.
####

BIDOUN: The Interview Issue (Fall 06)
http://www.bidoun.com/issues/issue_8/01_all.html#article

Homi K. Bhabha with Tirdad Zolghadr
Dr. Saad Bashir Eskander with Deena Chalabi
Anna Boghighuian and Robert Shapazian
Trevor Paglen and Thomas Keenan
Rem Koolhaas with Markus Miessen
Eliana Benador with George Pendle
Alaa Abd El Fattah with Ahdaf Soueif
Rashid Masharawi, Buthina Canaan Khoury, Nahed Awwad,
Hazim Bitar, Annemarie Jacir and Ahmad Habash with
Kamran Rastegar
Orhan Pamuk with Lex ter Braak
Hans Ulrich Obrist with Nav Haq
Shahidul Alam and Naeem Mohaiemen
Khalil Rabah with Mai Abu ElDahab
Elaine Scarry with Curtis Brown
Wayne Koestenbaum with Bruce Hainley
Ahmed Alaidy and Mustafa Zikri
Mohammed Fares with Hugh Macleod
Eyal Danon with Basak Senova
Ali-Reza Sami-Azar with Christopher de Bellaigue
Eva Munz with Mauricio Guillen

++++++++++++++++++++++
BIDOUN: The Interview Issue
Outside The Whale
Naeem Mohaiemen talks to Shahidul Alam

Shahidul Alam's work as a media activist and director
of the award-winning Drik Picture Library (drik.net)
inspired many Bengalis to blend cultural production
with political work. Shahidul deliberately locates his
work squarely inside Bangladesh, often defiantly
placing himself against local stakeholders such as
government ministries, the US Embassy, and the World
Bank. At times, he has paid a price for his solitary
defiance: DRIKs phone lines have been cut,
exhibitions cancelled, and during anti-government
demonstrations in 1996, Shahidul was stabbed by
unknown assailants. DRIKs journey over the past
decade highlights the relative privilege of those who
live between words, within easy reach of a diasporic
space of safety.

Besides Drik, Shahidul set up the Bangladesh
Photographic Institute, Pathshala (South Asian
Institute of Photography) and Chobi Mela (Festival of
Photography in Asia). His work has shown in MOMA,
Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, the Royal Albert
Hall and Kuala Lumpur National Art Gallery.

Filmmaker, writer and tactical media artist Naeem
Mohaiemen directs created Visible Collective
(disappearedinamerica.org), which works on art
interventions on hyphenated identities, loyalty tests
and security panic. Project excerpts have shown as
installations or lectures, including with the Wrong
Gallery at the 2006 Whitney Biennial.

Naeem: In the 1980s, you left London to move back to
Dhaka and start DRIK. In your writing, you've talked
about the need to locate media work outside the
dominant narrative spaces. Both you and your partner
(anthropologist Rahnuma Ahmed) also consciously made a
decision to conduct all your work in the Bengali
(Bangla) language -- even in the difficult case of
transliterated e-mail.

Shahidul: I did not leave England. I returned to
Bangladesh, where I was always going to be. The
biggest need was to change the way majority world
countries were portrayed. I was working with a
London-based studio, and the only pictures they ever
seemed to be interested in were pictures of disaster
or poverty. So being based in Dhaka was a fairly
automatic decision.

My partner Rahnuma and I were involved in the
anti-military junta agitations at that time, so I
began documenting that movement. It was a much more
lived experience than I had felt before. The move
towards speaking Bangla and the introduction of new
media were, in combination, a mechanism aimed at
reducing the digital divide. Without international
lines, faxes or money to make expensive calls, we
needed to find other ways to communicate. So setting
up Bangladeshs first email network was an obvious
choice.

The introduction of written Bangla in roman text
dramatically changed the demographics of participants
in our internet network, which brought home the
centrality of the vernacular, even in urban, literate
circles. Since then weve brought out several books
and a photography magazine in Bangla. Later we
developed a Bangla font that could be used on the Net,
which we used in the online magazine I was publishing,
so we could reverse the information flow.

Naeem: I'm thinking of the imagine.art.after project,
curated by Breda Beban, which brought together artists
who left home and now live in London, and others who
remained in the "country of their birth" (a misnomer
anyway -- I don't know where I fit since I was born in
London, grew up in Tripoli and Dhaka, and work in New
York and Dhaka). This brings to mind all the
differences in privilege, access, interests,
methodology, and networks that are created when
artists migrate. Bangladesh has a different trajectory
from the exile dynamics in locales like Lebanon, Iran
or Sri Lanka, but at times we've had equally volatile
eruptions, especially the turbulent 70s with coups,
counter-coups, and dirty-wars. Those in exile/in
diasporadic conditions may choose to locate in the
"belly of the beast" to challenge from inside. But for
this to work, diaspora cultural producers need a
theoretical and practical framework for work exchanges
between those who "stayed" and those who "left".

Shahidul: Leaving aside my overseas education, I was
conscious of the fact that I was highly privileged in
Bangladesh, by the fact that I had the opportunity to
study and did not have to worry about tomorrows meal.
We had all used the resources of this country for our
education, but wealthier countries were reaping the
benefits of that training. Through us, Bangladesh was
effectively subsidizing the west.

If enabling social change is measured, it is in
Bangladesh that one can get the maximum returns for
ones efforts. This works at a personal and emotional
level, and also if you evaluate how we can change our
lives. But, there are obvious risks of working in
Bangladesh, particularly for journalists for whom this
is said to be the most dangerous country after Iraq
[according to the Committee To Protect Journalists].

Naeem: Well, I know that when I tried to show a rough
cut of Muslims or Heretics: My Camera Can Lie in
Dhaka, the film was refused until you used your
networks. I understood then that the risk of
recrimination from the Islamists was borne by DRIK.
The fact that I work in New York provided a strange
kind of insulation. This is what made me think of the
overlapping and divergent paths of diaspora versus
"back home". What do these terms even mean when many
have dual passports, conflicting loyalties, and
multiple spaces of work?

Shahidul: Being overseas allows one to work with
greater impunity and substantially lower risks, and
take advantage of greater earning potential.
Technological benefits, as well as greater mobility,
and the ability to network gives advantages that
working here does not allow. Traveling on a
Bangladeshi passport also makes a lot of my
international work quite difficult (I was off-loaded
from flights twice after 9/11). I see clearly
different roles for those who work within and those
outside. Moral judgment and self righteousness
shouldnt enter either sphere.

You live in a country which has bombed 22 nations
since World War II, and is clearly responsible for
more civilian deaths in recent history than any other
nation. To be a taxpayer and therefore an accomplice
to the most brutal nation on earth, does require a lot
of redemption! Having said that, to pay the taxes and
utilize the benefits, to be able to turn the machinery
in ones favour and to actively subvert the normal
course of the machinery may well be a strategically
viable position, but it has to be carefully measured.

Naeem: You have a history of taking anti-authoritarian
positions in your struggles inside Bangladesh, which
involve a level of actualized danger. There were
situations when you were covering the Ershad junta,
and the collapse of the first rightist Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) regime, where you came under
physical attack. From the early days of DRIK's work as
an internet provider, the e-mail service as well as
your phone lines came under constant, regular
interference from government authorities. When DRIK
sponsored the Muslims or Heretics screening, one of
your employees received threatening phone calls. But I
also note the recent Time magazine cover story
"Bangladesh: Rescue Mission" carried a photograph of
the Prime Minister, taken by you. How do we negotiate
these interfaces with power?

Shahidul: Our anti-establishment position has been
perceived (by governments) as pro-opposition,
regardless of who is in power. Hopefully it also
reinforces our credibility as being non-partisan, in
the sense of party politics. When we put together the
exhibition The War We Forgot on Bangladesh's
liberation war of 1971, the government asked us to
remove the images which showed revenge killings by
Bangalis against Urdu speakers. We replied by pulling
the entire exhibition from the National Museum and
holding it in Driks gallery instead. The government
was left with egg on its face because visitors
constantly asked why such a show was refused by the
National Museum. Our credibility and network (local &
international) dissuades governments from bothering us
unless we seriously become a threat. Its gauging that
distance which is critical. One needs to feel the
intensity of the heat without getting too badly burnt.

Naeem: After Zana Briski and Ross Kaufmann won the
2005 Best Documentary Oscar for Born Into Brothels,
there was some talk of a "missionary rescue" syndrome
where western activists come in and do work in the
Southern context, but the existing infrastructure is
forgotten. It may be linked to the "christmas tsunami
syndrome", where certain causes get traction because
they foster an idea of western enlightenment projects
cleaning up and/or "helping" the South. This isn't
even a critique of Brothels per se, but rather an
invitation to probe the audience environment in which
all projects operate. DRIK has had many western
visitors come to study its work. Does this sort of
reverse knowledge transfer work well, or is there some
validity to the "rescue" critique?

Shahidul: Briski actually spent time with DRIK's Out
of Focus project in Dhaka, which has been teaching
working class children photography since 1994.
Interestingly, Kids with Cameras was the original
name of our Out of Focus group, and that also became
the name of the organization Briski founded -- but
perhaps that's a coincidence. Suvendu Chatterjee, the
director of our India branch, has been working with
Sonagachi activists for a long time and I am told that
he was the one who introduced Zana to the brothel. The
Sonagachi children had many tutors over time,
including [director/co-founder of Contact Press
Images] Robert Pledge and children from Out of Focus.
Of course, Zana had spent far more time than the rest
of us with those children. However, there were many
contributions from many sources which I believe did
not make it into the film. I find that problematic,
particularly in a project that is about community
building. From my own conversations with the Sonagachi
women, they want rights, not rescue.

As for the numerous western visitors to DRIK, I
welcome them. While it is true that Drik is not a
funded organization, we have worked with and received
support from many organizations. Our biggest support
base has been our many friends, inside and outside
Bangladesh. Besides, if we talk of being a transparent
organization, we can hardly turn around and shield
ourselves from curious eyes.

Naeem: There is an iconoclastic orientation in your
work. You documented the outre, diamond-studded wealth
of Prince Musa, the Adom Bepari or human exporter who
makes millions sending poor Bangla migrant labor to
the Middle East. You also have a habit of catching the
powerful in unguarded moments: Prime Minister Zia
surrounded by sycophants, ex-dictator Ershad enjoying
a wedding feast after getting out of jail, former
Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif entourage-less at an
airport. You also clashed with both the Dutch and
French embassies for some strange dress code that
didn't allow you to attend a formal dinner wearing
sandals. How do these provocations fit with political
re-orientation for our icon-blinded politics? How do
today's characters compare with the founding
heroes/villains: the Caesar figure of Sheikh Mujib,
the tragic-romantic Maoist guerilla leader Shiraj
Sikder, the secretly excuted crippled freedom fighter
Colonel Taher, the hodgepodge of Islamo-Communism of
Bhashani, etc. Compared to those flawed but colorful
characters, today's political butcher house seems so
debased that the punk ethic of "kill your idols"
doesn't even seem necessary. Even satire is irrelevant
for leaders who are already self-made caricatures.

Shahidul: I was young and never met [independence
movement leader] Sheikh Mujib personally, though I was
there for the historic 1971 rally and was moved by his
speech. I suppose Ive never been awed by these icons,
and have been more observant of their human
attributes. Part of our condition is we deify or
vilify our political figures, losing the opportunity
to sift out the good and build anew. Godfathers
support such idolatry as it is essential for their
survival. I must admit some pleasure from bringing
down these deities a peg or two. Maintaining such a
position is not easy in Bangladesh. Even after thirty
five years we havent been able to move away from the
Zia or Mujib dynasties.

Naeem: DRIK has always maintained the difficult
position of not being dependent on donor money but
surviving instead through your own commercial
assignments. You also have a honorable commitment to
internal wage equity, so that your salary is only
slightly higher than the entry-level employee. But
some of the photographers you train eventually leave
to take higher-paying jobs with NGOs and foreign donor
agencies. What are your thoughts about this dynamic?

Shahidul: Being financially independent is essential
for the credibility of a media organization. But we do
take on contractual work, some of which is derived
from grants. From a donor perspective, partnership
can be simply a pretty word to use. And consultants
and machinery continue to be tied to sources of funds.
So donors assume a subservience in any partnership
they enter into. The USIS [United States Information
Service] reminded us that they would never work with
us since we opposed Clintons visit to Bangladesh.
Similarly, the British Council reminded us that
Banglarights (banglarights.net) opposition to the
invasion of Iraq would jeopardise future projects.
They would never demonstrate such arrogance in their
own countries (and have learnt never to try it again
with DRIK). We know that we are white-listed by many
donor organizations and will never get work from them,
but take that as an indicator of our success.

Our salary structure does cause problems, and things
like our equal bonus policy is not always welcomed by
those in higher ranks, and yes, we do lose people to
NGOs and donor agencies, which is not a bad thing.
What disappoints me is when bright energetic
youngsters with spark get head hunted by the donors
and turned into well paid clerks who do the donkeywork
for their western counterparts.

Naeem: Some people whose work has been interesting me
recently are Dawolu Jabari Anderson (Otabenga Jones &
Associates), Temporary Services (Prisoner's
Inventions), Richard De Domenici (Richard De Domenici
is Still an Artist), Yara el-Sherbini (How To Make a
Carpet Bomb), Sandy Abdallah Kaltenborn (Kanak Attac),
and Valentin Manz (Vision Machine). I am curious to
know whose work you are tracking at this moment?

Shahidul: Pedro Meyer (zonezero.com), Tyng-Ruey Chuang
and Shunling Chen (Open Source Software Foundry),
Steven Gan and Premesh Chandran (malaysiakini.com),
Martin Chautari Group (Nepal), Marcelo Brodsky (Buena
Memoria), and Tehelka.com.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Letter from the Editor
Last year I bought a collection of old Interview
magazines. The first time I cracked open the set, I
learned that on June 30, 1973, Andy Warhol sat down
for a chat with Roman Polanski. Warhol ate a salad and
Polanski ordered a beer and a burger. In the span of
800 minutes, the two covered paparazzi culture,
communism, sex, hygiene, bugs, dying, everything. I
learned everything and nothing at once through that
encounter. And that got me thinking about interview
encounters in general.

Interviews have a long history, of course. In my own
lifetime, there's been the impious Oriana Fallaci
questioning Khomeini on the heels of the Iranian
revolution, or the famous Bashir interviews with
Michael Jackson. Go back further, and there were Tom
Wolfe's meetings with Timothy Leary, Leni Riefenstahl
talking to Hitler. Each in its own way has been
iconic, somehow fixing itself in the public mind and
inevitably bringing new things to light.

In this issue, we revisit the interview. Our selection
wasn't that complicated: these are simply people we
wanted to hear out. Among the featured are artists who
are up to interesting projects (Khalil Rabah's virtual
museum); others find themselves literally on the cusp
of history (Dr. Saad Bashir Eskander, the head of the
Iraqi National Archive) or, say, transition
(Sami-Azar, the former director of the Tehran Museum
of Contemporary Art). Some were selected for pure star
quality (Mohammed Fares, the first Syrian in space;
Homi K. Bhabha). We also have builders and
visionaries, such as Bangladeshi activist-photographer
Shahidul Alam and architect Rem Koolhaas.
Occasionally, we tapped into conversations already in
progress, as in the case of the long-running
friendship between Cairene artist Anna Boghighuian and
Los Angeles gallerist Robert Shapazian.

So there you have it. Interviews as a medium have been
subject to feminist critique, postmodern critique, and
who knows what else. Their curation, orchestration,
and execution can reveal an enormous amount about
their subjects, but also illuminate the context in
which they were held. Their circulation and
interpretation tell us about the world we live in.
Naturally, our selection reveals something about us
and how we see the world-this is inevitable. It is
biased, it is arbitrary, it is particular and even
peculiar. But then, what selection isn't?

Lisa Farjam 

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