Midnight’s Third Child: An Online Talk by Naeem Mohaiemen

ASAP | art organised an online talk on 28 January 2024 with Naeem Mohaiemen, around his book Midnight’s Third Child (Nokta in association with ULAB Press, 2020), an anthology of essays on artists and visual cultures from Bangladesh. Midnight’s Third Child is a translation of a Bangla phrase— chagol’er tritiyo baccha lafay beshi—that roughly translates to: the goat’s third child jumps more. The title signals the three-fold signs of Bangladesh—existing as East Bengal until 1947, East Pakistan until 1971 and following the Liberation War, as Bangladesh. Given these movements, reversals and renewals, the idea of Bangladesh remains contingent and contested. The anthology thus reflects on the people, projects and conversations that challenge majoritarian views. The introductions to the volume, written by Mohaiemen along with Tanzim Wahab and Zirwat Chowdhury, highlight the multiplicity of bringing together the previous writing, that came together and revealed new ways of looking at the interconnected histories within Bangladeshi visual cultures. 

In his presentation and subsequent discussion, moderated by Associate Editor Arundhati Chauhan, Mohaiemen introduced some of the initial questions and provocations that led to the inception of the book. He read excerpts from some of his essays which foregrounded the individual cultural alienation as well as a larger, national disassociation with a cultural identity, that is often mediated through multiple forces and histories of colonial and state-led oppressions. Acknowledging the blind spots of gender and ethnicity in the selections, Mohaiemen stated that his writing emerged from his interests, encounters and friendships, thinking through and writing about practices in a non-linear and through subjective experience. The discussion following the talk centred around these particularities and the many roles cultural workers undertake in postcolonial nations. The talk ended with a call for a need to build institutions and spaces outside of the West to inhabit and practice an anti-colonial ethos.

Naeem Mohaiemen combines films, photography, drawings, and essays to explore forms of utopia-dystopia in South Asia after 1945. He has exhibited and lectured in India at Sarai CSDS, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, School of Environment & Architecture, Studio Camp Bombay, Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute Kolkata, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, etc. He is author of Prisoners of Shothik Itihash (Kunsthalle Basel, 2014); editor of Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladesh Nationalism (Drishtipat, 2010); and co-editor with Lorenzo Fusi of System Error: War is a Force that Gives us Meaning (Sylvana, 2007). He is an Associate Professor at Columbia University, and is represented by the Experimenter Gallery.

(Featured image: Midnight's Third Child cover image: Ali Morshed Noton. In the image (l to r): Tareque Masud (1956–2011), Dhali Al Mamoon (1958–), Unidentified, Syed Sajjad Hossain Jyoti (1959–missing 1993), Mishuk Munier (1959–2011); during shooting of Tareque Masud's 'Adam Surat' (1989) on artist S M Sultan (1923–1994) at Audiovision office, Lalmatia, 1986. )

To revisit our previous live public lectures and talks, watch the recording from Christopher Pinney’s lecture titled Photo State, Rashmi Devi Sawhney’s lecture titled Artist as Citizen, Ashish Rajadhyaksha’s talk titled Taking it to the Streets, and a discussion around How Secular is Art?, edited by Tapati Guha-Thakurta and Vazira Zamindar, with Shuddhabrata Sengupta as a respondent.