Chobi Mela: Forging Political Solidarities
On Saturday, 2 May 2026, ASAP | art organised an online panel discussion with Munem Wasif, Sarker Protick and Tanvi Mishra, in conversation with Vincent Hasselbach, on the eleventh edition of the Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography, which opened to the public in Dhaka in January 2026, one month before Bangladesh’s long-awaited elections. Marking twenty-five years since its first iteration, the festival (re)turned to key themes of the wound, ecology and borders, with the curatorial response drawing from Bangladesh’s youth-led uprising, amidst disenfranchisement of citizens on the other side of the border, and in the context of continuing genocide and ongoing wars in Palestine, Sudan and Iran. By tracing what is common from the Nile to Beirut, or from Gaza to Karachi, and returning eventually to the streets of Dhaka where, just recently, rupture marked a possibility for renewal, the festival drew from its local context, while bringing international political histories and terrains into conversation.
In this edited conversation, Chobi Mela's curators reflect on their process of shaping a photography festival in a time marked by uncertainty. Why should artists and cultural workers gather while a genocide unfolds not so far away? Can the ecosystem of art offer a space to think otherwise—about the (re)opening of wounds, but also of dialogue that may not be possible in the public square? With the international world order having shifted since 2023, what does it mean to forge solidarities within the cultural ecosystem, particularly one located in South Asia?
Sarker Protick works through photography and moving images, charting two intersecting courses. One remains rooted in his hometown of Dhaka; the other traces the socio-political cartography of Bangladesh and the wider Bengal region. He is recipient of the Magnum Foundation Fund and World Press Photo Award, among others. Since 2017, Protick has been resident curator of Chobi Mela, and co-curated the eighth edition of Colomboscope in 2024. A graduate of Pathshala, Protick has been teaching at the school for over a decade, working closely with the younger generation of image-makers in the country.
Munem Wasif is an artist, curator and educator based in Dhaka. His work investigates themes of memory, place and identity, primarily through photography and video. He has been co-curator of Chobi Mela since the festival’s eighth edition in 2015. Together with Mahbubur Rahman, he also co-curated 1134–Lives Not Numbers (2014), an exhibition that paid tribute to the garment workers who lost their lives in the Rana Plaza factory disaster. He has published two editions of Kamra, a Bangla-language anthology of essays on photography, together with Tanzim Wahab. Wasif was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin from 2020 to 2021 and recipient of the Robert Gardner Fellowship in 2023 for research on the critical history of indigo in Bengal.
Tanvi Mishra works with images as a photo editor, curator, writer and educator. Among her interests are rights and representation in image-making, refusal as visual strategy and the notion of truth/fiction in photography. Her recent curatorial projects include the group show Rights of Passage at Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography, Bangladesh (2026) and Moving Definitions: an invitation to re-view at Rencontres d’Arles, France (2023) as well as solo presentations of Divya Cowasji at Serendipity Arts Festival, India (2025) and Isadora Romero at Musee Neimenster, Luxembourg (2025) and Photo Kathmandu, Nepal (2025). She was the creative director of The Caravan and on the editorial team of PIX. Her writing has been published widely in South Asia and internationally.
Vincent Hasselbach is a researcher and curator based in London. As a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at University College London, his research focuses on potential histories and conceptualisations of the state in Bangladesh through the everyday lives and political imagination of photographic archives. His recent projects include exhibitions and public programmes at Peckham 24 (2025, 2022, 2021), Photobook Cafe (2022), Polycopies (2022) and Format International Festival of Photography (2021).
(Featured Image: “Unhealed Beneath Grieving Skies” by Sumi Anjuman. 2025–ongoing. Image courtesy of the artist.)
Recorded on 2 May 2026.
To learn more about previous editions of Chobi Mela, read Ankan Kazi’s reflections on Sayeeda Khanam’s photography, Veeranganakumari Solanki’s essay on Yasmin Jahan Nupur’s relationship with practice and an episode of ASAP Cast featuring Tanzim Wahab as he shares his curatorial practice in the post-pandemic era.
