Workers’ yarns

Rana Plaza collapsed on 24 April 2013. The day before, Bangladeshi authorities had asked the owners to evacuate the eight-storey building, which housed, among other establishments such as a bank and shops, factories that employed around 3000 workers. Rana Plaza, located in the Dhaka suburb of Savar, produced garments for the commodity chain that stretches from the cotton fields of Southasia through Bangladesh's machines and workers to the retail houses in the Atlantic world. Garments for famous brands were stitched here, as are clothes that hang on the shelves of Wal-Mart. Over 1100 workers died under the building. They did not stand a chance.

Following the devastation, photographer and activist Taslima Akhter took her camera to Rana Plaza. She photographed what she saw as an act of remembrance. One of her pictures became emblematic of the violence – a man embraces a woman, both dead, covered by dust and debris. It was the tenderness in the midst of such brutality that made the picture so iconic. Akhter is part of the Biplobi Nari Sanghati and the Gana Sanghati Andolan – one a women's organisation and the other a group involved in left-wing activism. These are the contours of Akhter's politics and it helped define her powerful photographs. Akhter also teaches at Pathshala, a photography school in Dhaka founded by Shahidul Alam. When the dust began to settle on Rana Plaza, Pathshala's team, including Akhter, began to document the lives of the dead and the missing. Their work became Chobbish April: Hazaar Praner Chitkar (24th April: outcries of a thousand souls).