A man sits beside a window, his back to the camera, watching a river stretch towards a distant bridge. With his head resting on one hand, he appears absorbed in the quiet scene.
The photograph captures the unhurried rhythm of everyday life, setting the tone for Arif Abdullah’s solo exhibition, ‘Listening Beyond Sight’.
Inaugurated on Friday evening at Alliance Française de Dhaka in Dhanmondi, the exhibition remains open until 20 October, from 3pm to 9pm daily.
The gallery features a largely monochromatic collection, interrupted by a single colour photograph. Abdullah’s work draws on an ethnographic perspective, documenting rural landscapes, busy streets and working-class communities.
Having spent his formative years in Mirsharai, Chittagong, he brings a close familiarity with the people and places that populate his photographs.
Rather than romanticising ordinary life, Abdullah invites viewers to pause and notice its quieter details. Familiar faces and everyday settings take on new significance when given the time and attention they deserve.
During the exhibition, visitors often lingered before individual photographs, allowing the images to unfold at their own pace.
Abdullah also explained his preference for Canon cameras during a conversation about his equipment. He began with a Canon 400D before moving to the Canon 7D, which remains a favourite.
The exhibition’s only colour photograph, meanwhile, serves a deliberate purpose. Abdullah compared its effect to spotting one goose lifting its head while the rest of a flock keeps theirs lowered.
The contrast draws attention precisely because everything around it follows a pattern.
The exhibition’s title also reflects Abdullah’s personal journey. A graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts, he was diagnosed with choroideremia, a rare genetic condition that causes progressive vision loss, during his third year of study.
Rather than abandoning creative expression, he developed his relationship with music, teaching himself to play the harmonica through online lessons.
He later became a blues harmonica player and a maker of custom wind instruments. He also performs as the vocalist, songwriter and wind instrument player for the band The Strandroad.
‘Listening Beyond Sight’ brings together photographs from a particular period of Abdullah’s artistic life.
Beyond documenting the world around him, the exhibition invites audiences to consider how perception and creativity evolve, and how art can retain its power as an artist’s circumstances change.
