Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography (2026)
Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
16 January 2026 - 31 January 2026
Dhaka, Bangladesh
A selection of works from the series Former NKVD–MVD–MGB–KGB Buildings were included in But a Wound that Fights, as part of the 2026 Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography in Dhaka.
The exhibition explores how image-making in times of rupture and conflict becomes an act of reopening the wound. It does not expose the wound for the sake of spectacle, but to attend to it, to make sense of its meaning together. The image that pixelates, the silence that remains undocumented, the body that records what cannot be shown: these offer a way of connecting to the invisible traces of violence, loss, and displacement.
Former NKVD–MVD–MGB–KGB Buildings examines the material and psychological remains of Soviet repression in Lithuania through photography and sculpture. The works portray sites once used by Soviet security agencies for surveillance, interrogation, and imprisonment—ordinary houses that were made into instruments of control. Under Soviet law, institutions such as the KGB could freely define “anti-state activity,” allowing the arbitrary detention and torture of civilians. Domestic dwellings across towns and villages became silent witnesses to these hidden operations.