Asia’s largest photography festival Chobi Mela IX was launched on February 3 and the two-week festival will run till February 16.

This year’s theme for Chobi Mela is ‘Transition’. This time the festival is more centralized, as venues are all situated in South Dhaka, main venue being Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (BSA) and three venues at Old Dhaka: Beauty Boarding, BulBul Academy of Fine Arts and Northbrook Hall.

Chobi Mela IX Art and Education Program has taken an initiative of special gallery visits from February 10 to 13 at National Art Gallery of BSA. Students from class standard five to ten from renowned schools of Dhaka are participating in these visits. These special gallery visits have been planned in two slots, 10am – 12pm and 12pm – 2pm till February 13. Students will be seeing the works of Chobi Mela IX artists Cristina de Middel, Nasir Ali Mamun and Robert Zhao Renhui.

The special gallery visit has coordinated by photographer and the faculty of Pathshala South Asian Media Institute Jannatul Mawa. Head of Photography Department at Pathshala South Asian Media Institute Tanvir Murad Topu, along with the curators and organisers of Chobi Mela IX will be present during these visits.

The students, on each day of the gallery visits are being accompanied by special guests who will be walking through the galleries with children and sharing their thoughts on Chobi Mela IX.

Today, on the second day of special visit, this year Chobi Mela’s Lifetime Achievement Award receiver, photographer Nasir Ali Mamun, along with actors Iresh Zaker and Bonna Mirza will be seen roaming around the galleries with students from Oxford International School (Dhanmondi campus), DPS STS School, Aroni Biddaloy and Scholastica (Uttara campus).

Tomorrow, the students of Scholastica (Mirpur campus) will be visiting the gallery with a special guest.

Earlier, on February 10, Sayed Reshad Imam Tanmoy, assistant editor and cartoonist of Bangladesh’s first satire magazine Unmad and staff cartoonist of Dhaka Tribune, was present at the special gallery visit with the students of Oxford International School (Gulshan campus) and European Standard School.
Yesterday, second day of special gallery visits, researcher, writer and film director Ehsan Hafiz was accompanied by the students of Wordbridge School, South Point School and Maple Leaf International School.