সামান্য | SAMANNO

18 April - 31 May, 2025
Bengal Shilpalay, Dhaka

Commissioned by Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation

INDEX

SEEDS SHALL SET US FREE

Seeds Shall Set Us Free is a series of cyanotype prints of rice seeds, Wasif juxtaposes his cyanotypes of rice grains and plants with archive documents and photographs from one of the largest community grain banks in the country.

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2017-2023

SONGS OF SEASONS - AN ECOLOGICAL CALENDER

Proverbs, locally known as “Khona,” refer to an ecological food table rooted in Bengali folklore, codifying and prescribing paryicular food produced to be included in the regular menu around the year.

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2023-Ongoing

LAND OF THE UNDEFINED TERRITORY

Munem Wasif’s haunting series of photographs and three-channel video of an undefined land elucidates the dialectic relationship between a land and its identity

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2014-2015

পতন | Collapse

In these photographs, we see a man-made structure, geometric, brutal and monumental in scale, standing tall against the forces of vigorous currents of the Jamuna river that race down on the horizontal plane, amidst soft and fragile elements of nature. Bringing forward this juxtaposition of a horizontal and vertical axis, Munem Wasif’s image based installation discloses a contradictory tale of climate, life, nature, and development.

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2021-2023

STEREO

In “Stereo”, Wasif shifts his lens to the architecture of inanimate objects as encountered within the cityscape. Verging almost to the point of abstraction, these colored sets of diptychs and triptychs discuss various forms of uniformization.

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2001-2022

PAPER NEGATIVE

Wasif revisited his archive of over a decade of work in Old Dhaka to develop Paper Negative, an installation featuring 28 original paper negatives created with the Box Camera in collaboration with photographer Sheikh Mohamad Safdar Hossain.

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2011-2025

খেয়াল | KHEYAL

Kheyal follows four characters through the streets of Old Dhaka in Bangladesh. The title is derived from the Arabic word ‘Khyal’ or ‘Khayal’, meaning fiction or imagination, and the film captures the enigmatic environments and unique identities; shifting between real and imagined narratives

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2015-2019

সামান্য | Samanno

“সামান্য/ Samanno” in Bengali refers to something small or insignificant. It reflects the artist’s constant search for unveiling the sublime in the ordinary. More recently, Wasif has been drawn to the built environment that forms the skin of Old Dhaka. The evolving architecture and urban infrastructure, shaped by spatial constraints, reflect the city's transient exchanges.

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2022- Ongoing

SPRING SONG

Spring Song is a work in progress that revolves around objects found in the camps. Placed against vivid monochromatic backgrounds, these precarious assemblages, decaying documents, and faded photographs convey fragmented memories and feelings of displacement.

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2017-2019

2ND JULY 2020

On 2n July 2022, in the midst of a covid-induced lockdown, the Government of Bangladesh issued a notice to close down 25 state-owned jute mills. 70.000 workers were laid off overnight through the "golden handshake" scheme. This series of 11 photographic works echoes the pain and precarity of these workers.

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2020

MACHINE MATTER

In Machine Matter, Wasif examines the death of the jute industry in Bangladesh and the destruction of the livelihoods the ‘golden fibre’ once supported. Using long takes and tight shots, the artist turns his lens to an abandoned jute mill and the former workers who ran the machines—the union of man and machine that formed the heart of a major industry.

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2017-2022

IN GOD WE TRUST

A cluster of ethereal Black & White photographs, some intimate objects and the video conversations of the close ones, Munem Wasif connects these pieces together to inquire the riskiest subject-matters; religion, identity and personal belongings.

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2009-2016

SALT WATER TEARS

Rippling sea waves, dried river beds and endless fields. Water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. There is no fresh water any more, only a salty, rotten corpse. Shrimp farming has choked off the very foundation of coastal agriculture. Birds, fishes, insects– everything on the land has been burnt away by the tyranny of brackish water.

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2009-2011

MUNEM WASIF | মুনেম ওয়াসিফ