In my country, Bangladesh, being raised as a woman or gender minority involves navigating a complex patriarchal landscape. Throughout my life, I have witnessed numerous struggles against this system that has shaped our society for centuries. Along the way, gender minorities are constantly confronted with various fears and violence.
With such a backdrop, Bangladesh is experiencing on average nearly 4 women, girls, and children being raped daily as rape incidents are on the rise. Social scientists, lawyers, and field-level crime investigators found that the culture of impunity, illegal use of power, political failures, lack of accountability of concerned agencies, and decay of social values are contributing to the formation of rape culture. In this terrifying manifestation of reality, even our unconscious is possessed by the fear of being raped.
At this intersection, Zana (a pseudonym) and I engaged in a distinctive visual dialogue titled "River Runs Violet", as a non-violent protest against the enduring roots of rape culture in Bangladesh. Zana’s reflections as a rape survivor, along with my own experiences as a woman raised in the same environment, led us to embrace photography as a shared space to articulate emotions of fear, uncertainty, anguish, solidarity, and resistance. More importantly, it became a means of 'healing through creation' for both of us.
To convey these emotions, we hand-stitched onto photographs, layered text over them, sketched with white and red ink, pierced their surfaces with needles, created collages from collected images, and ultimately re-photographed the outcomes. These acts transformed our exchange into a multivocal visual correspondence, where responses from each side took distinct forms yet collectively and synchronously interrogate this particular context.
Installation view from Encounters Of Young International Photography (2024), Villa Perochon - CACP, Niort, France.