Bangladeshi site www.sachalayatan.com is blocked! This site is in Bangla. To access it go through a proxy server.

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“Majority World”: UCLA’s Amerasia Journal Publishes New Thinking on Post 9-11 Culture and Crisis

Los Angeles-The UCLA Asian American Studies Center announces the thirty-seventh-year Spring 2008 edition of Amerasia Journal, which focuses on post 9-11 identity and culture through the concept of “majority world.” This issue is entitled “Majority World Movements,” a term coined by Bangladeshi photojournalist and scholar Shahidul Alam. In the early 1990s, Alam began to advocate for a new expression, to, in his words, challenge the “West’s rhetoric of democracy.” (During the past forty years, ” the culture of poverty,” and “third world communities” were used domestically, while internationally, countries were categorized as Third World, Developing World, or as Least Developed Countries.)

However, as Alam points out, “the expressions have strong negative connotations that reinforce the stereotypes about poor communities and represent them as icons of poverty.” Thus, the term “majority world” seeks to define “the community in terms of what it has, rather than what it lacks.” The term necessarily includes the cultural, intellectual, and social “wealth” of these communities.

Alam believes that the contemporary photographic image has the “power to validate history” from the majority world perspective, in opposition to manufactured corporate representations. To challenge such media power brokers, in 1994 Alam began to teach photojournalism to working-class children in Dhaka, enabling them to become the producers and disseminators of their own images.

Majority World explores both the concept and its implications with contributions by an international array of scholars, writers, and activists in the following three sections.

Part One-Articles in this section include: “Form and Emptiness: Globalization, Liberalism and Buddhism in the West,” by Dana Takagi, who looks behind the culture of Buddhism in the U.S.-in relation to the popular traffic of both ideas and things-books, statues, malas, incense, prayer flags. In the West, as Takagi argues, Buddhism can also, contribute to the formation of new political movements including “ecopolitics, cultural politics, ethical advocacies, and radical autonomy.”

Constance J. S. Chen, in her study, “‘The Esoteric Buddhist’: William Sturgis Bigelow and the Culture of Dissent,” examines the late nineteenth-century trend of American Orientalism “amidst the dramatic socioeconomic transformations taking place on both sides of the Pacific.”

Chinese American writer Maxine Hong Kingston works with American War veterans through her writing workshops that combine her writing expertise, Buddhist theory and practice, and notions of sangha or community from various wars, according to Shan Te-hsing who interviewed Kingston. Kingston states: “A veteran can be a peace activist, a woman, a deserter, a combat soldier, a non-combatant, et cetera.”

Nancy Abelmann and Shanshan Lan, in this section, examine an Asian American campus church predominately made up of Korean and Taiwanese Americans; Brandy Lien-Worrall, our book review editor based in Vancouver, Canada, contributes a Zen poem.

Part Two of this special issue focuses on South Asia, with featured commentary on the culture and countries involved in the political assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who had returned to Pakistan in the Fall of 2007. These include writings by Roshni Rustomji, Vinay Lal, and Amitava Kumar.

Part Three features new research. Jane Mee Wong examines Pingshe-the Equality Society and the writings of Ray Jones, or Liu Zhongshi, a Chinese American worker and main organizer of the U.S. branch of the China-based anarchist group. Wong utilizes the Chinese American archives developed by Him Mark Lai at U.C. Berkeley. See also William Gow’s excerpt of the memoir of his grandfather’s sister, Auntie Kay, from her life growing up in China Alley in Oxnard, California in the years before the 1965 Immigration Act. Will, a social historian and a graduate of the M.A. program in Asian American Studies at UCLA, also provides an additional research note on how to do Asian American genealogical research utilizing family records, family trees, timelines, and new technologies.

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Young Briton joins Magnum

© Olivia Arthur

British-born Olivia Arthur is one of two new photographers selected as a nominee to Magnum Photos, while three current associates have obtained member status at the agency’s latest annual meeting. Olivia was one of the participants in the recently completed Joop Swart Masterclass along with eleven other talented photographers including ex-Pathshala student, Bangladeshi photographer Munem Wasif

Arthur, who was shortlisted in BJP’s Project Assistance Awards for her work (BJP, 28 February 2007) and Peter van Agtmael, a 27-year old American Dutch photographer, both achieved 50% of members’ votes in a secret ballot after their work was viewed and discussed at the New York meeting. They were selected after the 60 members of the agency reviewed more than 200 candidate portfolios, under the presidency of Stuart Franklin.

In two years’ time they will be able to resubmit their images to apply to become associates, for which they will have to receive a 66% majority vote. If successful they will be able to apply for full membership in 2012. This year associates Antoine d’Agata, Jonas Bendiksen and Alec Soth have received full membership. They all joined the prestigious agency as nominees four years ago.

No associates were named this year as, two years ago, Magnum did not welcome any new nominee to the agency.

D’Agata has published four award-winning books, including Vortex and Hometown, and also shot a feature film, Aka Ana, in 2006. Bendiksen started his career in 1996 as an intern at Magnum’s London office. He went on to win numerous awards including the 2003 Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography and, more recently, the National Geographic Photography Grant. Soth has published two books, Sleeping by the Mississippi and Niagara, and is represented by the Gagosian Gallery in New York and the Weinstein Gallery in Minneapolis.

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Blog of the Day on WordPress

With 3,509,247 blogs on WordPress and with 142,687 new posts on the day ShahidulNews came in the top 11 on the 8th July 2008 on list of most viewed blogs, “Blog of the Day”. Thanks for your support.

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Prominent Photographer Prashant Panjiar from India will be in Bangladesh on 7th and 8th of July, 2008. He will be at Drik on 8th and show the images from his exhibition “King, Commoner, Citizen” followed by a discussion with the students/Teachers of Pathshala/Pathshala@ULAB on the pictures and issues raised there. All students and Teachers of Pathshala/Pathshala@ULAB are invited to the session.

Venue: Room-402, House # 719/A, Road # 7A, (Satmosjid Road), Dhanmondi R/A, Dhaka-1209Time: 8th of July 2008, 3:00pm-5:00pm*

Thanking you,

Pathshala.

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Pathshala students excel at National Geographic All Roads Photography Awards:

The National Geographic All Roads Photography Program recognizes and supports talented international storytellers whose still photography documents their changing cultures and communities. Each year four photographers are awarded a financial prize, and their photo essays are exhibited at the All Roads Film Festival and other venues. They also receive photographic accessories and, through workshops, get valuable training to assist in their fieldwork.

Pathshala Student Khaled Hasan won one of the four awards of 2008 while another student Shehab Uddin won an honorable mention.

Stone crushers of Jaflong by Khaled Hasan of Pathshala

We are people too. By Shehab Uddin of Pathshala © Shehab Uddin/Drik/CONCERN

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Bangladeshi photographer Munem Wasif wins prestigious F25 Award:

JURY ANNOUNCES THE WINNERS OF THE SECOND “F” AND F25″ AWARDS FOR THE CONCERNED PHOTOGRAPHY

“They are concerned photographers. They take sides. They are people who wanted to show things that had to be corrected.. wanted to show things that had to be appreciated”
The Concerned Photographer, Editor Cornell Capa, Grossman 1972

Treviso, Fabrica, June 13^th, 2008. 143 entries coming from photographers of 40 different countries were submitted to the Jury of F award, a contest promoted by Fabrica, Research Centre on Communication, Treviso, and Forma, International Center of Photography, Milano. 15 entries were submitted to the F25 award.

Chaired by photographer Reza Deghati, the Jury has met at Fabrica, in Treviso, to select the winners and was including the following members:

Elisabeth Biondi, Visuals Editor of The New Yorker
Enrico Bossan, Editorial Director of Colors magazine
Giovanna Calvenzi, Photo Editor of Sportweek, Milan
Julien Frydman, Director of Magnum Photos Bureau, Paris
Roberto Koch, Director of Contrasto, Rome
read more about jury…

The recipients of the awards are:

F AWARD
Leonie Purchas, Great Britain
Essay: In the shadow of things
“The jury unanimously voted this exceptional work, carried out in compliance with the award rules and regulations which reward an innovative photographic approach, interested in the human condition. By this prestigious prize, the jury therefore encourages the continuation of this rare and courageous testimony.
Leonie Purchas chose to take an introspective look at herself through the members of her family. Her images genuinely portray this fair, intimate and harsh story of her close relatives, which can tell the story of the whole human family.
Leonie Purchas has started a piece of work, which once completed, may exist through a book, an exhibition, and a film. Through her strong testimony on a part of life, Leonie Purchas will then have written a page of humanity”.

F25 AWARD
Abdul Munem Wasif, Bangladesh
Essay: Old Dakha
“With this prize, the jury rewards a journalistic piece of work with a keen sense of photographic composition and a modern visual approach of the movement. The jury hopes that this prize will enable Abdul Munem Wasif to improve his testimony on his universe and the world around him”.

A Special Mention has been assigned to:
Jonas Bendiksen, Norway, for the essay The places we live, an exceptional essay shot in 4 megalopolis of the eastern and southern world and to Norma Rossetti, Italy, for the essay Scampia.. periferia nord di Napoli (Scampia. Naple’s north outskirts).

The F award is a creation of Fabrica, the Benetton Research Centre on Communication, based in Treviso, and Forma, International Center of Photography, Milano, a joint initiative of Fondazione Corriere della Sera and Contrasto.

The winning F project will receive a contribution of euro 20.000, the possibility of publishing a book and of having an exhibition of the selected work. The F25 winner (for photographers under 25), will be awarded a one year scholarship in Fabrica’s Photography Department.

Download press release (PDF - 17Kb) English
Scarica comunicato stampa (PDF - 16Kb) Italiano

For further information:

Angela Quintavalle
Fabrica
angie@fabrica.it
www.fabrica.it

Roberta De Fabritiis
Forma
stampa@formafoto.it
www.formafoto.it

23 June 2008 19:00

Nigerian artist Andrew Esiebo, currently on an artist residency in London co-hosted by Gasworks and The Photographers’ Gallery, will be speaking about his participation in Black Box, a photography collective in Nigeria and his work in London.

He will be In Conversation with Nilu Izadi from Photodebut.

Free, booking required

To book please contact the Information Desk on 020 7831 1772, or email info@photonet.org.uk