Shahidul Alam
"Drik Picture Library Ltd." is an award winning picture library set up by Bangladeshi writer and photographer Shahidul Alam and Bangladeshi writer and anthropologist Rahnuma Ahmed. The agency was set up in 1989 to provide a platform for local photographers in the majority world. The Sanskrit word "Drik" refers to vision, inner vision and philosophy. "Drik" has gone on to provide media services which includes web development, video production, print production and exhibitions. In 1998 it set up the "Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography and Chobi Mela", the first festival of photography in Asia. "Drik" uses new media extensively in its activism and introduced email to Bangladesh in the early nineties. It also set up "Banglarights", the Bangladesh Human Rights Network and "DrikNews", an independent news agency, that extensively uses citizen journalism. More recently, "Drik" set up "Majority World" an unprecedented photo library and agency set up to promote the work of photographers from the global south and to promote fair trade photography. It is headquartered in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, but also has branch offices in India and the UK.
Interview originally published in 2015.
More information on the whole project "Dreams of Art Spaces Collected" (2015).
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