Mahtab Nafis (Bangladesh, b. 1988)

Anatomy: Prologue

2015 – 2016

Time stops. A pause.
Memories come back, a reminder.
The ashes of time echo in the everyday past. The elapsing continuum.

Growth continues. Discovering takes place bit by bit, peeling through what is buried, becoming something beyond comprehension. Perhaps I have lost something or just found it, soon after losing it. Being unsure of what just happened, reality feels surreal. My mind floats in the dark, wandering amidst the convoluted collection of paradoxical thoughts, tearing apart.

The seeking gaze.
And the changing phase. Emotions are strange, Memories are stranger.

After a gap, it gets difficult to parse one’s emotions. But there is the sense that something has changed, somewhere deep at the molecular level. When you recognise your part in it, you’re surprised. Unkind memory keeps coming back like clockwork.

The series Anatomy: Prologue is a photographic contemplation of my father’s death in a road accident on the 5th of February, 2010. Road accidents are a matter of great social concern in Bangladesh. Each year, there are at least 3,000 fatalities and 3,000 grievous and minor injuries from 3,500 reported accidents. Some sources estimate the fatalities as high as 12,000 to 20,000 per year.

Mahtab Nafis attended the photography programme at Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. Currently he works as an independent photographer. His ongoing body of work Anatomy: Prologue is about memory and making memories through the lens of a significant incident that altered his life. His work has been exhibited and presented in Bangladesh, India, China, and Norway.