The “Witnessing History in the Making: Photographs by Anne de Henning – Bangladesh 1971-1972” is travelling to the Guimet Museum of Asian Art in Paris.
The exhibition, produced by Samdani Art Foundation and Centre for Research and Information, will take place from October 19, 2022, to January 23, 2023, in partnership with Asia Now Paris Art Fair and the Guimet Museum of Asian Art, according to a media statement.
The first iteration of the exhibition took place in Dhaka from December 10, 2021, to March 31, 2022, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence.
The exhibition will show a focused presentation of rare, never before exhibited photos by French photographer Anne, curated by Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury. In her powerful images, the humanity of her subjects is combined with the grit of traditional photojournalism.
Between 1971 and 1972 the photojournalist captured the birth of a nation and her remarkable private archive of unseen photographs is a unique record of the pivotal years which saw East Pakistan transformed into Bangladesh.
A Bangladeshi flag gifted by the freedom fighters to Anne in 1971 will also be displayed at the exhibition.
The earliest photographs from 1971 cover Anne’s first visit to the country at the age of 25. At that time, in the early days of the conflict in April, the Pakistani authorities in Dhaka were not letting foreign journalists into the country.
This was obviously to keep them from reporting on the atrocities they were perpetrating on the civilian population after having launched Operation Searchlight on 26 March 1971. This encouraged Anne to secretly travel to East Pakistan along with her colleagues. Her photographs captured life in the war zone – from freedom fighters to men, women and children boarding refugee trains and fleeing from their villages.
Taken during her second visit to Bangladesh, Anne’s photographs from 1972 feature Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Anne captured Bangabandhu giving a speech at the first council meeting of Awami League after the independence of Bangladesh.
“I came specifically from Calcutta to photograph the event,” she said. Although at the time Anne favoured shooting in black and white, she chose to capture this event in colour because of the vibrant blue, white and red stripes of the shamiana – ceremonial tent – that housed the event.”
Photos of Bangabandhu were “systematically” destroyed after the coup of 1975, and her surviving colour photographs are among the few ones known to still exist.
In addition to images of Anne’s travels throughout Bangladesh, the exhibition brings together other works from her archive including photographs from her time in India and her coverage of the Vietnam War.
Source: United News of Bangladesh