Biography

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year 2018, photographer, writer, curator and activist, Shahidul Alam obtained a PhD in chemistry before switching to photography. Returning to Dhaka in 1984, he documented the democratic struggle to remove General Ershad. A former president of the Bangladesh Photographic Society, Alam set up the award winning Drik agency, the Bangladesh Photographic Institute, the Chobi Mela festival, the Majority World agency and Pathshala, the South Asian Media Institute, considered one of the finest schools of photography in the world.

Alam’s work has been shown in MOMA New York, Centre Georges Pompidou Paris, Royal Albert Hall and Tate Modern London and Museum of Contemporary Arts Tehran. He has been a guest curator of Whitechapel Gallery, Winterthur Gallery, National Art Gallery Malaysia, Musee de Quai Branly and Brussels Biennale. His numerous photographic awards include Mother Jones, Howard Chapnick Grant, Open Society Institute Audience Engagement Grant and Shilpakala Padak, the highest state award given to Bangladeshi artists. Alam was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Dali Festival in China in 2017. He was given the Lucie Foundation Humanitarian Award in 2018 and the ICP Infinity Special Presentation Award in 2019.

His show “Best Years of My Life” was the central exhibit at the Global Forum for Migration and Development in Berlin and the Global Media Forum in Bonn. His recent work “Embracing the Other” on Islamophobia and Extremism was shown to international acclaim. He was the international guest curator for the Auckland Festival in New Zealand.

A speaker at Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, Oxford and Cambridge universities, museums in all continents, as well as TEDx, POPTech and National Geographic, Alam has been a jury member in prestigious international contests, including World Press Photo, which he chaired and Prix Pictet. Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, Alam is a Visiting Professor of Sunderland University in UK, Adjunct Professor in RMIT in Australia and Regent Professor at UCLA in USA and advisory board member of National Geographic Society and Eugene Smith Fund.

His book “My journey as a witness”, listed in “Best Photo Books of 2011” by American Photo, has been described by John Morris, the former picture editor of Life Magazine, as “The most important book ever written by a photographer.” “Birth Pangs of a Nation” edited by Alam, was voted the best book of 2012 at Asian Publishing Convention. His show “Kalpana’s Warriors”, which is currently on tour, was voted “Best Exhibition” at Dali Festival in China in 2015 and was the central exhibit at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2016 in Malta. It was being exhibited at the Freedom City 2017 in Newcastle UK to honour Dr Martin Luther King Jr. and was the Bangladeshi entry at the Kuala Lumpur Biennale in 2017. In 2009, Alam was commissioned by the Nelson Mandela Foundation to take what turned out to be the last official portrait of Nelson Mandela.

An active blogger and a new media pioneer, Alam introduced email to Bangladesh in the early nineties. Alam was arrested in August 2018, for criticising the Bangladeshi government, but was released on bail after over 100 days in jail after an international campaign for his release. Amnesty International described him as a prisoner of conscience.

A retrospective exhibition of his work “Truth to Power”, currently showing at the Rubin Museum in New York and his new book by Steidl “The Tide Will Turn” have received critical acclaim.