Munem Wasif’s Krom Osho is a decades-long conversation with Puran Dhaka
Sabrina Fatma Ahmad
A city is a living, breathing ecosystem, an observable fact if one cares to look close enough. And Munem Wasif has been staring at Old Dhaka for years. Krom Osho, a month-long visual arts exhibition of Wasif’s work is an invitation to experience these changes and reconnect with various iterations of the capital’s oldest settlements through the lens of his work.
Krom Osho, which loosely translates to ‘the progression of time’ exhibits two decades of the artist’s work on Puran Dhaka in three phases – titled “Stereo, Kheyal, and Bare: encircling the past, present, and on to the imagined future.”
Wasif has documented multiple layers of time and recorded the exponential growth of old town communities, embracing urbanity through photography, film, and various other media.
“Over a time of nearly two decades, Wasif’s image-making technique, language, and search within the same piece have continuously evolved. As time passed, both Wasif’s experience changed, which in turn influenced the shift from close-ups to more vertical or square compositions, and strong presence of everyday objects, quiet and firmly distant. Here, things, not people, are taking centre stage; they transmit energy and memories just as well, but at a different frequency. Things come and go, yet some things can elude detection and remain in a place or a mental place, forever.” ~ Tanzim Wahab, Curatorial Advisor, Krom Osho
Close-ups of spaces and objects take pride of place amidst the photographs on display within the space; the monochrome of dim, dark, cramped and often grimy spaces broken up by a bright pop of color, be it the neon plastic tube of a gas line attached to an ancient stove, or the bright LED display of a smartphone propped up against a metal tumbler inside a dusty old cafeteria in the after hours. The observer has the sensation of standing in the present time, watching the past have a conversation with the future. In other sections of the exhibit, paper negatives of portrait convey the sense of personal stories fading with time. Art installations of various objects related to trades unique to Puran Dhaka ground us in what has remained the same when so much has changed. The film segment, whose audio floats into the other areas of the exhibition, draws the visitor into the liminal space between the artist’s vision, and the lives he documents.
“I would describe the content as characters who are lost in certain mental states
and are found in other magical situations” ~ Munem Wasif
Krom Osho runs from April 18-May 31 at Bengal Shilpalay.
Photo Source: Courtesy
