Australian Magnum photographer in Dhaka
From left: Shahidul Alam, Festival Director, Chobi Mela, HE Douglas Foskett, Australian High Commissioner, Bec Dean, Curator, Australian Centre for Photography and Trent Parke, Photographer are seen at the reception
The Australian High Commissioner, Douglas Foskett welcomed visiting Australian photographer, Trent Parke, at a reception held on Wednesday 8 November, which was attended by a number of high profile cultural and artistic personalities. “Trent Parke is an outstanding young Australian talent, and his participation in the Chobi Mela IV International Festival of Photography, is the first by an Australian artist. I hope Trent’s visit can build on the already significant cultural relationship between Australia and Bangladesh”, the High Commissioner told assembled guests.
Trent Parke will be presenting his Minutes to Midnight exhibition at the Bengal Gallery from 9 November as part of the Chobi Mela IV festival. Minutes to Midnight is “an intense and darkly beautiful vision of Australia” - an end result of Parke’s two years of journey all the way through Australia with an aim to rediscovering the country that he was born in.
In the words of Shahidul Alam, the Chobi Mela Festival Director, “For a photographer to have received the prestigious Eugene Smith Award, and World Press Photo Awards in 2000, 2001 and 2005 is impressive in itself. The fact that he is the only Australian photographer in the elite Magnum Agency, belies the fact that Parke was only born in March 1971, a few days before the war broke out in Bangladesh. His mysterious ethereal images are hauntingly beautiful, but carry a deeper message. A message that is respectful of the world he lives in.”
Trent Parke and Ms Bec Dean, from the Australian Centre of Photography, have travelled to Bangladesh with the assistance of the Australian Government’s Cultural Relations Discretionary Grants program.
Australian High Commission
Dhaka
8 November 2006
For further information please contact Nawrin Samrina, Senior Political & Economic Research Officer, Australian High Commission.
Tel: 8813105, E-mail: [email protected]