Bangladeshi photographer Munem Wasif’s debut show in India, Jomin o Joban – A Tale of the Land, features just four works. But Wasif has packed into it a multitude of ideas about history, borders, ecology and economy.
Jomin o Joban, which translates to “land and promise,” begins with a set of photographs (“Land of the Undefined Territory). Taken in what looks like a nondescript, barren stretch of land, they depict the disputed border territory between India and Bangladesh that in reality seems to belong to neither country but to industry-which aggressively mines the area for limestone.
The video “Machine Matters” juxtaposes the promises industry makes with its failures. Filmed at a languorous pace, the video is rich with melancholy irony as the camera gazes upon machines in a derelict jute mill. Once symbols of modernity and profit, they’re now no more than junk. At regular intervals, Wasif also shifts focus-for instance, zooming in so close on the body of a worker that he no longer seems human. The skin becomes a terrain that’s twitching, heaving and eerily beautiful.
