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© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
Shahria Sharmin’s ‘Call me Heena’ is an exploration of the Hijra (third gender) group in Bangladesh via tender and emotionally layered black and white portraits. The artist e-book shines with quiet energy, its considerate design selection inviting the viewers right into a deeply humane world the place Hijras are seen not as “others”, however as people with households, friendships, vulnerabilities as their lives formed by loneliness, love, grief and resilience. The poetic high quality of the e-book feels nearly incidental, its true energy lies within the humanity it conveys. Shahria’s creative philosophy transforms images from mere documentation into collaborative storytelling via long-term engagement together with her topics.
It is an honor to expertise this highly effective e-book and to current an interview with Shahria.
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
Tell us about your rising up. With the background in Public Administration what made you select images as a medium to specific your self and books as a type to symbolize it?
I grew up in Bangladesh inside a social surroundings the place many issues had been felt however not at all times spoken. Questions round identification, gender, and belonging had been usually current as silence relatively than dialog. That sense of quiet statement stayed with me.
My tutorial background in Public Administration gave me a approach to perceive constructions how society features, how programs embody or exclude individuals. But over time, I felt that numbers, insurance policies, and formal language couldn’t totally maintain the emotional and private realities I used to be attempting to know. Photography got here to me as a manner of being nearer a approach to pay attention, to spend time, and to witness with out imposing conclusions. It allowed me to work via relationships relatively than distance.
Books, for me, are a pure extension of that course of. They create an area the place photographs, textual content, and silence can exist collectively. Unlike exhibitions, a e-book could be held, returned to, and skilled slowly. It turns into an intimate house nearly like a room the place the viewer can enter and stick with the work over time.
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
Tell us about your undertaking “Call me Heena”. What impressed you to start documenting the lives of Hijra communities in Bangladesh, and the way did it evolve over time? Your pictures current a deeply nuanced and intimate perspective — capturing their dwelling house, private belongings, vulnerabilities, and on a regular basis resilience inside a society that usually marginalizes them. Some of the pictures additionally carry a metaphorical high quality, including depth to the narrative. The textual content on the finish of the e-book provides one other layer of that means, not solely enriching their tales but additionally reflecting how the expertise has formed your individual private journey. Would you wish to elaborate?
Call Me Heena started in 2012, once I first met Heena and was launched to the Hijra group. Before that, my understanding of them was formed by distance by social silence, worry, and stereotypes I had grown up with. Meeting Heena shifted that utterly. What started as curiosity slowly turned a long-term engagement constructed on belief, time, and relationships.
I didn’t start with a set thought or a transparent final result. The undertaking developed organically over greater than a decade. I returned repeatedly, spending time with out at all times photographing sitting, listening, sharing on a regular basis moments. Over time, the work moved from statement to connection. Heena, for me, shouldn’t be just one particular person however a presence that displays many lives I’ve encountered all through these years.
The pictures attempt to maintain that intimacy of their dwelling areas, private belongings, moments of vulnerability, but additionally resilience and care. I used to be not keen on creating distance or spectacle, however in being near the on a regular basis the place life unfolds quietly. Some photographs carry a extra metaphorical layer, particularly the landscapes, which typically replicate emotional states or echo what was being spoken or felt.
The use of a wood road field digicam additionally turned necessary in shaping the work. Its gradual course of created house for interplay and allowed relationships to unfold throughout the act of photographing. It shifted the image-making from one thing rapid to one thing shared.
The textual content on the finish of the e-book comes from fragments of conversations, reminiscences, and reflections gathered over time. It shouldn’t be meant to clarify the pictures, however to sit down alongside them including one other layer of voice, together with my very own place throughout the work. This undertaking has modified me deeply. It has made me query what household means, how we outline belonging, and the way we be taught to pay attention.
For me, this work shouldn’t be a conclusion. It is an ongoing journey one which continues to develop with time.
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
You labored on this undertaking over a decade earlier than turning it into an artist photobook. When did you resolve to offer it the artist e-book type? How did the dummy throughout dienacht Publishing Workshop assist to create the ultimate type of the e-book?
For a very long time, I didn’t consider the work as a e-book. It was an ongoing strategy of photographing, returning, and constructing relationships. But through the years, I started to really feel that the undertaking wanted a type that would maintain its emotional depth, its silences, and its layered narrative. A e-book felt like essentially the most intimate and applicable house one thing that might be held, revisited, and skilled slowly.
In 2020, I participated in a photobook workshop with the intention of figuring out what was lacking within the work. That course of made me notice there have been gaps each visible and emotional within the narrative. After the workshop, I returned to photographing with a clearer sense of route, attempting to fill these lacking hyperlinks and strengthen the general circulate of the story.
The turning level got here through the dienacht Publishing Workshop, the place engaged on the dummy helped me see the undertaking in another way not as particular person photographs, however as a sequence with its personal rhythm. Editing, putting photographs in relation to one another, and enthusiastic about pauses, textual content, and transitions all performed an necessary position in shaping the ultimate type.
The dummy additionally allowed me to experiment with construction: methods to transfer between portraits, landscapes, and quieter moments; methods to introduce the smaller e-book inside the principle e-book; and the way textual content may sit alongside photographs with out explaining them. It helped me perceive not solely what to incorporate, but additionally what to go away out.
Through this course of, the work steadily discovered its type. The ultimate e-book is not only a group of pictures, however a fastidiously constructed house formed via time, reflection, and continued engagement with the individuals and tales inside it.
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
The noir temper of the e-book is hanging with the black and white photographs. The temper is elevated with different design components just like the thumbnails/textual content on black pages or the pop-out leporello which may fold like a flower. It invitations the observer into the folds which reveal the flowers in soil. Metaphorically it additionally represents what Heena says ‘I am like a flower made of paper’. Can you elaborate on the design decisions of the e-book?
Making the dummy was an necessary start line for me. Through that course of, I started to know how a e-book features as an area how sequencing, rhythm, and materials decisions form that means. It revealed many issues I didn’t know earlier than and helped information me towards the ultimate type of the e-book.
The design then developed via lengthy and ongoing conversations with the designer. It was a really collaborative course of. From deciding on and sequencing the pictures to enthusiastic about structure, pacing, and bodily components just like the folding leporello and the booklet throughout the e-book, every determination was made fastidiously to assist the narrative I wished to convey.
Interestingly, the primary dummy was already very near the ultimate e-book. Only a couple of photographs modified, whereas the general design and construction remained nearly the identical. The narrative was formed into three chapters, which circulate quietly and cohesively all through the e-book.
One of the principle challenges was working with totally different picture codecs: some pictures are digital, some made with the wood road field digicam, and others introduced as diptychs and triptychs. Bringing these various codecs collectively right into a single e-book required cautious consideration, and with the designer’s assist, this complexity was resolved in a manner that feels balanced and fluid. Calin, as a designer, was distinctive all through considerate, attentive, and deeply engaged with the work.
The noir temper of the black-and-white photographs felt important to the emotional tone of the undertaking, holding each intimacy and distance. The use of black pages with textual content and thumbnails creates pauses, nearly like moments of silence between chapters. The pop-out leporello, which unfolds like a flower, invitations the viewer to bodily have interaction with the e-book to open, uncover, and replicate. In a refined manner, it connects to Heena’s phrases about feeling like a “paper flower,” one thing that’s seen, however not totally touched or understood.
In the tip, the design shouldn’t be separate from the work it turns into a part of the storytelling itself, carrying its emotional and conceptual layers.
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
Who and/or what has been inspiring you recently? What is your subsequent undertaking?
Lately, I discover myself drawn increasingly more to quiet, missed lives tales that exist on the margins however carry deep emotional complexity. I’m much less impressed by a single particular person and extra by encounters, by time spent with individuals, and by the way in which relationships slowly unfold. At the second, I’m engaged on a long-term undertaking inside brothels in Bangladesh. The work focuses on aged intercourse employees girls whose lives are sometimes made invisible by age, stigma, and social exclusion. I started this undertaking after shedding my mom through the pandemic, when I discovered myself pondering deeply about care, growing older, and the absence of household. That search led me to those areas, the place I encountered girls who’ve been deserted, but have shaped their very own fragile programs of assist and belonging.
Similar to my earlier work, this undertaking can be evolving slowly. It is constructed on time, belief, and presence attempting to know not solely their struggles, but additionally their resilience, dignity, and emotional worlds.
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
© Shahria Sharmin, artist e-book “Call Me Heena”
Shahria Sharmin (b. Bangladesh) is a visible artist and documentary photographer based mostly in Dhaka. With a background in Public Administration, she turned to images as a approach to discover questions of identification, belonging, and gender. Shahria’s follow is rooted in long-term, empathetic engagement. She usually focuses on tales of household, loss, and social exclusion, utilizing her digicam not simply to witness, however to construct connection. Preferring a gradual and tactile strategy, she incessantly works with a hand-built wood road field digicam — a software that invitations slowness, intimacy, and mutual belief. Her ongoing undertaking Call Me Heena, which paperwork the lives of the Hijra (transgender) group in Bangladesh and past, displays her deep dedication to difficult cultural norms and imagining alternate types of kinship. Shahria’s work exists on the intersection of tenderness and quiet resistance — a visible meditation on the opportunity of discovering house amongst these pushed to its edges.
Shahria’s work has been recognised internationally. Selected awards embody: 2025 British Journal of Photography’s Ones to Watch, 2019 World Press Photo 6X6 Global Talent from the Asia, 2017 Women Photograph grant along side the Pulitzer Center on Crisis (Shortlisted), 2017 Magnum Photography Award 2017, 2014 Alexia Foundation (2nd Place Student Grant), recognition from Lensculture amongst others.
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This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you may go to the hyperlink bellow:
http://lenscratch.com/2026/05/interview-with-shahria-sharmin/
and if you wish to take away this text from our website please contact us
