Chobi Mela 0 to kick off 12 February

The 11th edition of Chobi Mela titled "Chobi Mela 0" is ready to enthral the audience with its beautiful collection from around the world. 

The international photography festival will be held between 12 and 21 February at Drikpath Bhaban in Panthapath area, said a press release.

A total of 75 artists from home and abroad including countries like India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will participate in the event. 

The event will feature eight projects in eight segments, namely Off-Limits, The Rebel with A Smile, Wishing Tree, Frozen Song,  Crossroads Collectives' Intervention, Baba Betar,  Chapakhana Archive and Chobi Mela Fellowship 2021. 

The curators of the event are ASM Rezaur Rahman, Sarker Protick and Tanzim Wahab along with guest curators including Anushka Rajendran, Nazmun Nahar Keya and Zihan Karim.

This edition will focus on the achievements of noted photographer Sayeeda Khanam and architect Bashirul Huq.

According to the curatorial note, with this special edition — Shunno (0), Chobi Mela raises essential questions about its own purpose.

'Shunno can be an amorphous infinite space, or a home that runs parallel with all others. Shunno is a pure matter-energy in philosophy, detached from a troubled force. After completing 10 editions in two decades, Chobi Mela mounts a self-reflective edition,' the note added.

Chobi Mela 0 invited artists and curators to create a space teeming with testimonies to the present time. The edition focuses on its home and the neighbourhood, South Asia at large, to find how regional artists and curators devise collective actions in overly divisive spaces and 'how art attempts to surmount the limits of present-day democracies with diversity, at a moment when citizens understand that states, left in the hands of exploitative forces, have failed in protecting their rights'.