4/15/2012 6:00pm until 9:30pm
Queens Museum of Art
New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY 11368-3398

Forum & Opening Reception for Partnership Gallery Exhibition in Collaboration with Drik Picture Library, Dhaka.

Bangladeshi photographer and human rights activist Shahidul Alam’s Crossfire exhibition will open in the Partnership Gallery at the Queens Museum of Art on 15th April, 2012 and run until May 6th, 2012. The exhibition aims to gather international support for a campaign to end extra-judicial killings in Bangladesh by state forces, usually called “crossfire.”

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

6-7pm Opening Reception

7-8pm: Panel 1: Role of Photography in Human Rights Advocacy

Featuring: Photographer & Writer Shahidul Alam and Brian Palmer, Brooklyn-based Independent Photographer and Documentary Filmmaker. Moderated by Todd Lester, Founder of freeDimensional, which hosts activists in art spaces and uses cultural resources to strengthen their work.

8-8:15: Chai Break

8:15-9:15: Panel 2: Diaspora Solidarity Strategies

Featuring: Dina Siddiqi, Visiting Associate Professor at the Women & Gender Studies Program, Hunter College, and Humayun Kabir, activist with the South Asian Solidarity Initiative, and a graduate student in Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center. Moderated by Rupal Oza, Director of the Women & Gender Studies Program and Associate Professor of Geography at Hunter College

In 2004, responding to a perceived law and order “crisis” the Bangladesh government created a new, armed enforcement agency, called Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). The agency was formed by taking officers from the Bangladesh Police, Army, Navy and Air Force. Over time, the agency’s budget and power grew until today it is one of the largest and most feared groups inside Bangladesh. From the very early days, RAB became notorious for killing people it was trying to capture, often during gun battles, which the government always claims is due to “crossfire.”

RAB has been the subject of repeated condemnation by international human rights activists, including Human Rights Watch, starting with their 2006 report Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Torture and Extrajudicial Killings by Bangladesh’s Elite Security Force. Activists have also insisted that Bangladesh’s continued participation in UN Peacekeeping Forces be made subject to the government ending the practice of torture and extra-judicial killings by RAB.

Shahidul Alam’s Crossfire project was first shown in Bangladesh in 2010 to draw attention to extra-judicial killings by RAB. The government responded by shutting down the show. Eventually, a court ruled in favor of Alam, and the show was reopened. Now Queens Museum of Art is bringing the project to New York for the first time. The project includes photographs that recreate, through metaphoric images, extra-judicial killings by RAB; videos about the controversy over the show; and a live Google map that pinpoints locations for numerous extrajudicial killings.

Crossfire attempts to reach out at an emotional level where a fragment of the story has been used to suggest the whole. According to Shahidul Alam, “My intention was to get under the skin. I walked those cold streets; heard the cries; sat quietly with the family besides a cold corpse. The show is a quiet metaphor for the screaming truth.”

The exhibition at Queen’s Museum of Art will include a public forum on April 15th, where New York based activists and photographers will discuss the impact of photography on redress for human rights violations. Panelists will also discuss the role of Bangladeshi diaspora populations in international solidarity work. The US role will also be discussed, especially the alleged “training” of Bangladeshi security personnel by the US government in violation of international law.

In conjunction with this show, events are planned in Bangladesh, where posters about abuses committed by RAB will be distributed nationwide, informing and educating local people of their rights, through new data and facts.