This series was made in Puran Dhaka, translated to Old Dhaka. The ancestral connection between the artist and Puran Dhaka goes back several hundred years. The manifestations of the imageries have been inspired by the stories the artist heard as a child from his grandmother, the poetries he read and the time he time spent there. Walking around this part of the city Nafis used a fixed lens camera to make these photographs. Often during post-production, he removed and/or repositioned elements to please the aesthetic of the images.
Text and Photographs by Gazi Nafis Ahmed
About the Artist
Gazi Nafis Ahmed lives and works between Barcelona and Dhaka. He primarily uses photography and video in intimate, fluid, and playful terms. Inspired by real-world concerns, tales and fantasy, he digs into various spaces and times. His works have a broad spectrum of fluidity that is neither concerned with fiction nor reality and it leaves the desire for recognition to the spectators.
In 2003, after completing his Advanced Levels from Bangladesh International Tutorial he went on to study the foundation program in Art, Media & Design at Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media & Design at London Guildhall University, in the United Kingdom. Later, he completed his Undergraduate Degree in Documentary Photography from the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus, Denmark, and received a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Photography from Istituto Europeo di Design and Master in Arts (MA) in Cine Documental from Lens School of Visual Arts in Madrid, Spain. In 2016, Ahmed was invited to become a visiting fellow at The Center for the Study of Social Difference at Columbia University in NY, USA. In April 2019, he ended a year-long artist residency in Spain, which was supported by The Andrew W Mellon Foundation. He is a visiting lecturer at the Arte de India program at Complutense University.
He represented the Pavilion of The People’s Republic of Bangladesh at the 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2019. His works are part of important art collections globally..