A two-day photo exhibition on Brazilian culture by Sabrina Islam was recently held at the Edge Gallery in Gulshan.
The exhibition, titled “Beauty in Diversity,” was inaugurated by Ambassador of Brazil to Bangladesh Joao Tabajara Jr at 4pm on Sunday.
Sabrina Islam loves travel photography. She started it as a hobby at the age of 14 and began pursuing it seriously from 2010.
In 2019, she accepted the ambassador and his wife Sandra's offer to visit Brazil to take the photos for the exhibition. She began with the legendary Carnivale in Rio de Janeiro.
“After the carnival we visited other parts of Brazil. I tried to cover the most important parts of the country,” said Sabrina.
The displays reflected the rich diversity of Brazil, from the Carnivale in Rio de Janeiro to the Amazon rainforest and the town of Paraty in Costa Verde.
"I saw things which are indescribable. The colour and revelry at Carnivale, for example, was extremely difficult to capture. I tried to capture the spirit of the festival and the Amazon in my own way, and show the diversity of Brazil,” Sabrina said at the exhibition.
“The event that was etched into my mind is of course the Carnivale itself. It is so incredible that you can never take enough photographs. Each costume is different from the other. The music is constant and changing. The whole thing was an experience,” she added.
Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka TribuneDescribing the River Rio Negro, she said: “The water of the river is black. I went on a boat cruise and some of the other passengers jumped into the water to swim. It was a very scary experience, because when I jumped in, I thought something was pulling me because the water was so thick. It was very difficult for me to float.”
Sabrina is terrified of spiders and she one that was about 8 inches long at the Amazon Forest. “There are all these different species of insects and reptiles in the water. These are all very scary. The Amazon rainforest is a very dense forest, and quite scary at times.”
It is a particularly unnerving and unusual experience to look at the wildlife at night, she added.
She further said that she was thankful that visitors to the exhibition appreciated the display and felt what she was trying to convey through the photos.
This is Sabrina’s second solo exhibition. Her first solo exhibition took place at Drik Gallery in 2018.
She has also participated in a number of group exhibitions.
The Beauty in Diversity exhibition ended at 8pm on Monday.
