Photographers Salvador Arellano and Sumon Yusuf worked together to follow the daily life of Bede and document the ongoing traditions of this nomadic group. The work of Arellano and Yusuf has been compiled in a carefully edited book and the photos have been exhibited at the National Gallery, in Bangladés Shilpakala Academy.

Inditex Chair for Spanish Language and Culture has sponsored the travel of the Spanish photographer, Salvador Arellano, in January 2017. During his staying, he travelled and worked with the Bangladeshi photographer Sumon Yusuf. Together, they followed the daily life of Bede, an old nomadic people nowadays living scattered all over the country. Bede people have lost some of their ancestral customs, but Salvador and Yusuf worked to document their way of life and their ongoing traditions.

The work of Arellano and Yusuf has been compiled in a carefully edited book and the photos have been exhibited at the National Gallery, in Bangladés Shilpakala Academy. The exhibition was opened on the 10th of October 2017 by Prof. Dr. Md. Akhtaruzzaman, Vice Chancellor of the University of Dhaka, Mr. Álvaro de Salas, Ambassador of Spain in Dhaka, Prof. Santiago Fernández Mosquera, from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Ms. Amparo Porta Rivas, Inditex Chair Coordinator, and the photographers Salvador Arellano and Sumon Yusuf.

The exhibition displays a selection of 50 prints, which the photographers chose themselves as the highlights of their work. Salvador Arellano’s photographs were taken in colour and Sumon Yusuf’s works in black and white, underlining from the beginning their differences in concept and sight. They were captured over their three week trip together in more than twenty different locations, ranging from the outskirts of big cities to remote corners of rural Bangladesh. In most cases, the photographs are closely related to water and river landscapes, due to the relationship of waterways with Bede’s nomadic lives.

The title of the exhibition, "Desterrados" (no land), wants to evoke the estrangement and uprooting of these groups, not only from a geographical perspective, but also from a historical point of view, as the lack of information seems to have transformed Bedes into literary characters, thus stripping them of their humanity.

10/10/17 - 25/10/17