Ways

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4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Haymarket

by Andrew Frost

Born in Bangladesh but raised in Sydney, Omar Chowdhury has returned to that vastly populated country to investigate the spiritual lives of its people in the city of Old Dhaka, and in the countryside near his relative’s home. The result is Ways, a series of video installations including three single screen projections and a three-screen installation piece.

Chowdhury’s aesthetic is both minimal and maximal – the camera remains on a subject for long periods of time without cuts and slowly a sense of place and purpose emerge, while the videos themselves, from Vastness in Eclipse [31 mins] and Torsions I and II [106 mins to Locus I [149 mins] and Locus II [74 mins] demand a degree of concentration and viewing commitment beyond the abilities of most average gallery visitors.

The beauty of Chowdhury’s aesthetic emerges in the monumental running times of the works, and his an unwavering eye on the votive actions and religious gatherings of individuals and crowd’s moves beyond ethnography into something that only a video installation and the nascent art of the ‘expanded documentary’ can achieve.

Pic: Omar Chowdhury, Vastness in Eclipse, 2014. 3 channel, 31mins 14sec, HD video, 2.35:1, Colour, Stereo.