08 Feb Lesser-Known Stories

A zine book by Tanvir Alim during the residential art exchange program at Dubolhati Palace in Naogaon, BD.

Tanvir felt like yesterday, when he visited the palace for the first time. Each time there, someone inside him whispered that everything is temporary. Could there be a day when somewhere within this palace, the queen looked at herself in the mirror, the king sat still for his portrait, the midwife came out of the small room holding an infant? 

The rest of the world was too loud when he started recording the narratives. Tanvir wanted to explore the palace through their eyes so he captured their performances by asking them about the palace. By palace he means the people and the contemporary realitie. 

At one point he visited the school here and figured out that the young generation knew very little of these stories. There is no transformation and thus the oral history is also disappearing with the palace. He wanted to document how passengers would react, by placing the narratives by two different generations within the vehicles that travel from Dubolhati to Naogoa.

Young people are the audience of his work where he wanted to create a zine to show the gap in the text of the zine, through quotations that he have collected through different interviews with the local community members and activities with the school children. In the zine, he bent the different photographic moments that he captured in the palace. The images are neither sharp nor detailed to depict the decaying oral history of the palace. He placed them in the auto that people use here to go to the nearest town.

However, his questions, can the zine conserve the oral histories around the palace and the place?

His final outcome was not only the only the zine and the participatory installation in the auto but a also a wall magazine in collaboration with the school children of King Haranath Ray High school.

Click here to see the zine made by Tanvir Alim during the residency period. (if it is not already showing below)

Zine by Tanvir Alim at URONTO Artist Community

This Zine was made by Tanvir Alim, as an outcome of his participation in Uronto Residential Art Exchange programs 8th Episode in Dubolhati, Naogaon, Bd. The zine reflects contemporary dialogues and thoughts of two ganerations from the village and surrounding area of the palace. more detail at https://urontoart.org/archive/

Tanvir Alim is an artist and cultural worker in Bangladesh, experiments with variety of mediums such as mono-print, photography, video and sound installation. He takes deep interest in the sexuality politics, intersectionality of causes and social justice.