There are a few things that I notice during a Zoom interview with Dhaka-based artist, Munem Wasif as we converse about his relationship with the photographic medium. One - he pauses often to ensure that he has the apt word to describe his thought; much like the pauses and stillness resonant in his imagery. Two - he is patient and speaks with a passionate vocabulary about the arts, a strength that comes with the experience (or because) of being a curator and a teacher. And three – he talks about spaces like they are living-breathing entities, replete with emotion, stories, and hidden secrets, only presenting themselves to keen seekers of tales.
These distinctive traits are starkly visible across Wasif’s practice that navigates the line between fact and fiction – a deliberate choice after starting off as a documentary photographer. His biography on Agency Vu in Paris where he is a represented artist, reads, “Expressionistic in style and long-term in method, Wasif often experiments beyond the tradition, tests the possibilities of fiction, by borrowing a familiar documentary language.” Wasif is the recent recipient of the revered Robert Gardner Photography Fellow 2023 at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University, and will develop a work about the critical history of the Indigo Revolt in Bengal.
His affinity towards long-form narratives allow for a layered understanding of grave matters such as food sovereignty, labour exploitation, and borders and migration. While the weight of the subjects are anything but light, the lucidity in his imagery allows for the viewer to breathe within his photographs, and more importantly, leaves them open to question the unseen.
