In Conversation: Taslima Akhter and Robin Berson

Sep 162018

archive : 2018

In Conversation: Taslima Akhter and Robin Berson

Taslima Akhter and Robin Berson will be speaking in conversation about their processes as artists and activists working in the labor movement, advocating for the rights of garment workers.

Presenters: Taslima Akhter Robin Berson

Location: Brooklyn Bridge Park – Water Street

#Artist Talk

Presented by:

Taslima Akhter and Robin Berson will be speaking in conversation about their processes as artists and activists working in the labor movement, advocating for the rights of garment workers. The two have collaborated and communicated from across the world: Akhter in Bangladesh, and Benson in New York, on projects memorializing the lives of mostly female garment workers that have been lost in preventable factory tragedies. Both women work on the ground for the equal rights of workers and to create an awareness of the conditions that exist within garment factories worldwide.

Presenter Bios

Taslima Akhter

Taslima Akhter is a Bangladeshi activist and photographer, who has been working as a witness of workers’ struggles for the last 11 years. She is the Chair of Garment Sromik Samhoti (Bangladesh Garment Workers Solidarity), where she contributed to the creation of Rana Plaza Massacre: An Anthology, a website based on the book “24th April: Outcries of a Thousand Souls.” She also published a photobook on the Rana Plaza Collapse titled “Lives not Numbers,” developed during the Photobook Masterclass workshop in 2017 at Chobi Mela IX in Bangladesh. Her work, “The Life and Struggle of Garment Workers,” led her to be selected for a Magnum Foundation fellowship in 2010 and her image, “Final Embrace,” was recognized by the World Press Photo Contest and named one of the top ten photos of 2013 by TIME Magazine. Taslima has exhibited in the United States, China, Norway, Brussels, Germany, and Cambodia.

Robin Berson is an activist, historian, and artist. She is a member of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition and has served as an advisor for the quilt project and curator of resulting exhibitions in Bangladesh.

Quilters: Ayesha, Chaina Begum, Khadiza Begum, Nasima Begum, Shunno Bala Dash, Farzana, Rahela Khatun, Alam Matbor, Shumitra Rani, Sagorika’s mother, Selina, and curator Taslima Akhter’s mother, Begum Zebunnessa.
Robin Berson

Robin Berson is an activist, historian and artist. She is a member of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, and works to educate the public on the tragedy with the intention to ensure that the rights of workers are met today. Her workers’ memorial quilt commemorates New York’s deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, where 146 people, mostly immigrant women, perished. The quilt has been displayed at several New York museums and in Massachusetts. She has since worked alongside Taslima to create her Bangladeshi memorial quilt of Rana Plaza, with texts from newspaper articles as well as photographs, some taken by Taslima herself. The two quilts were displayed together in the exhibition “Across the Centuries, Across the Continents: Triangle Fire and Bangladesh Garment Workers Memorial Quilts”, and at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Morningside Heights. She was also the managing editor of a quarterly history journal and has published several books.

Organizations

Magnum Foundation

Magnum Foundation is a nonprofit organization that expands creativity and diversity in documentary photography, activating new audiences and ideas through the innovative use of images. Through grant making and mentorship, Magnum Foundation supports a global network of social justice and human rights-focused photographers and experiments with new models for storytelling.