Most people consume news in a hurry. An exhibition at DrikPath Bhobon, Panthapath, invites them to slow down.
“No Viral, No Speed: A Festival of Slow Journalism by Students” opened Tuesday and runs until 7 November, daily from 3pm to 8pm, across levels two and eight. It features work by 30 journalism students from Khulna University and two Dhaka institutions, curated by ASM Rezaur Rahman. The term “slow journalism” was coined by Susan Greenberg in 2007, emphasising narrative craft alongside factual discovery.
The second floor explores Khulna’s coastal belt, from salinity’s impact on rural women’s hygiene to “When the River Forgets to Flow”. The latter follows the Shibsa River in Paikgachha, where Jorip Gazi, after sailing it for nearly 35 years, now watches its waters disappear. Across 27 kilometres, the river has dried up or narrowed.
Level eight remembers Palestinian journalists killed covering Israel’s war through blue cyanotype portraits. The Committee to Protect Journalists says more press members have died in this conflict than in any war it has documented since 1992. Other projects examine women trapped in residential sex-work syndicates and the patriarchal bargains sustaining them.
Photographs, films, stories and handmade objects invite visitors to linger. In an age of clickbait, the students make their case for journalism that takes time — and rewards it.
