Taslima Akhter turned to documentary photography after many years as an activist with workers’ and women’s rights organizations, with whom she continues to work. As a photographer, she likes to work on issues relating to gender, the environment and culture, as well as exploring spaces of social discrimination.The TIME Magazine has selected Taslima’s photo Final Embrace as one of top ten photos of
the year 2013. Her work was exhibited in USA and China. She won the Best Photography Award from 5Th Dali International Photography Exhibition in China in 2013. In 2012 COURAGE a German women’s organization organized an exhibition of her work in Germany. She worked on after math of Nandigram of West Bengal, India in this year and completed a 4-week internship with Magnum Photos UK. She has been working on Bangladeshi garment workers’ life for the last 6 years. She participated in the summer course on Human Rights and Photography in New York University In 2011. Her work on ‘The Life and Struggle of Garment Workers’ won the third prize for documentary photography in Julia Margaret Cameron Award, and also let to her being selected from the entire South-Asia region for the Magnum Foundation scholarship in 2010. The work was also exhibited at the Angkor Photo Festival in Cambodia, after exhibitions in Bangladesh during the garment workers strikes during the summer of that year. Other photo stories she had worked on include ‘The Life and Practice of Lalon Devotees’ which was selected for the Nordic Light photo Festival in Norway in 2009. Taslima, a former president of Bangladesh Students’ Federation is currently a lecturer of photojournalism at Pathshala (South Asian Media Institute) in Dhaka. Now she is working as a coordinator of ‘Bangladesh Garment Workers Solidarity.’
She previously completed MSS and M. Phil in public administration from the University of Dhaka and graduated in photography from Pathshala. She was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1974.
