Bangladesh | Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography 2026
From 16 to 31 January 2026 Drik Picture Library and Pathshala South Asian Media Institute is organising the 11th Chobi Mela festival in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The festival features extensive physical exhibitions along with a lineup of multidisciplinary events and experimental art projects.
Spanning 16 days, the festival (CM XI) showcases nine exhibitions across five venues in Dhaka — the Bangladesh National Museum, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Alliance Française de Dhaka, DrikPath Bhobon, and the Bangladesh National Parliament. This year’s edition unites 58 participants from 18 countries across 5 continents under the theme ‘Re’.
The prefix ‘Re’ resonates again, anew, or otherwise. A repetition, a reversal, a reopening. In times of conflict, lens-based practices reveal the paradox of the image: it bears witness, while erasing documents and troubling the narrative. Across the works assembled, one can encounter the archive and the dream, the chant and the scar, the witness and the whisper.
Chobi Mela is to celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2026, highlighting a legacy that has transformed photographic education, practice, and discourse across the Global South. Defining its mission, Festival’s founder and Chief Advisor Dr. Shahidul Alam explains that ‘Chobi Mela is transformative. It turns the photography world on its head. It reminds us that there is such a thing as the majority world, with different aspirations, with different needs and different modes of storytelling.’
Highlighting the festival’s diverse opportunities, Festival Director ASM Rezaur Rahman states, ‘This festival is a space for photographers and audiences to engage with urgent social, cultural, and political questions through images. We aim to create dialogue across borders and generations, using photography as a tool for reflection and change.’
Image: Body exercises as part of Kriti: A Workshop on Creative Expression, photographed by Sheba Chhacchi, New Delhi, 1983. Courtesy of the artist