With LAND OF UNDEFINED TERRITORY, Munem Wasif calls into question the identity of a country that is bound within the concept of a nation state to a specific political and geographical context. Wasif photographed an undefined area of land on the disputed border between India and Bangladesh. The slow, repetitive image momentarily freezes time, transporting the viewer into another time, another space, that could also be anywhere. The work, which looks like a study, sheds light on the detachment of a seemingly everyday area that in reality is loaded with politics and history. The exhibited part of Wasif’s ghostly series consists of three video channels.

Land of Undefined Territory is supported by the Samdani Art Foundation

Munem Wasif’s images were made in the Satkhira region of south-west Bangladesh where, every year, thousands of people die of easily preventable water related diseases. As a result of climate change and unplanned shrimp farming, the area experiences frequent natural disasters, erratic rainfall and a steady increase in the salinity of the water table. Established structures of work and societies centred on work have largely broken down. Farmers are reduced to occasional labour and many people have to venture huge distances to find fresh water, fish and housing materials, all of which used to be available closer to home. In so doing they expose themselves to a terrifying array of risks, including attacks from dog sharks, king cobras and, ironically, the endangered Bengal tiger.

Puran Dhaka, the old centre of Dhaka, is a subject close to Munem Wasif's heart. “Here I learned to value well-cooked, fat food, discovered the beauty of rank slang, and rediscovered countrified impulse to want to hang onto things.” Family and tradition are important in old Dhaka. That is what binds people together there. But at the same time the atmosphere is pregnant with growth. For Wasif, these streets, this area, is more than a geographic reality. It is home.

Bangladesh is a country with massive problems and challenges. Overpopulated and vulnerable to recurring floods, it lives on the front line of social-economic issues and climate change. Munem Wasif spotlights two aspects of modern Bangladesh in the series selected: BLOOD SPLINTER OF JUTE and STONE WORKERS OF JAFLONG. The first looks at the loss of the jute industry, once the driving force in the economy. Jute factories have been closed, often under pressure from the government, with all the consequences that has for communities that were dependent on jute pro-duction. The second series deals with workers who extract stones from the bed of the Piyain river, where they have been carried down by the current. The stones are needed to supply the flourishing construction sector with materials. While the stones are used to build villas in Dhaka, the workers – among them many women and children – earn less than two dollars a day.