Visual Testimony in the Formation of National Memory: Zainul Abedin's 1943 Famine Sketches
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58355/dirosat.v4i2.212Keywords:
Visual Testimony, National Memory, Bengal Famine, Zainul Abedin, Postcolonial Art, Collective Memory, Trauma RepresentationAbstract
This paper examines how Zainul Abedin's 1943 Bengal Famine sketches function as visual testimony in the formation of Bangladeshi national memory. Drawing upon testimony theory, postmemory studies, and visual culture analysis, this study argues that Abedin's ink drawings operate not merely as historical documentation but as performative acts of witness-bearing that have become foundational to collective remembrance of colonial trauma and postcolonial identity formation. Through close analysis of three representative sketches and examination of their circulation in museums, textbooks, and public discourse, this research demonstrates how visual testimony can transform immediate documentation of catastrophic events into enduring sites of national memory. The paper contributes to scholarship on art as historical evidence while illuminating the specific mechanisms through which visual culture participates in the construction of collective identity in postcolonial contexts.
Downloads
References
Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso.
Assmann, J. (2011). Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination. Cambridge University Press.
Azoulay, A. (2008). The Civil Contract of Photography. Zone Books.
Belting, H. (1994). Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art (E. Jephcott, Trans.). University of Chicago Press.
Bhabha, H. K. (1990). Nation and narration. In H. K. Bhabha (Ed.), Nation and Narration (pp. 1–7). Routledge.
Chatterjee, P. (1993). The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton University Press.
Derrida, J. (2000). A self-unsealing poetic text: Poetics and politics of witnessing. In M. Clark (Ed.), Revenge of the Aesthetic: The Place of Literature in Theory Today (pp. 180–207). University of California Press.
Felman, S., & Laub, D. (1992). Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. Routledge.
Greenough, P. R. (1982). Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal: The Famine of 1943–1944. Oxford University Press.
Halbwachs, M. (1992). On Collective Memory (L. A. Coser, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1950)
Hirsch, M. (2008). The generation of postmemory. Poetics Today, 29(1), 103–128.
Islam, M. S. (Ed.). (1977). Zainul Abedin: Art of Bangladesh Series 1. Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.
Mitchell, W. J. T. (1994). Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. University of Chicago Press.
Mukherjee, J. (2015). Hungry Bengal: War, Famine and the End of Empire. Oxford University Press.
Nora, P. (1989). Between memory and history: Les lieux de mémoire. Representations, (26), 7–24.
Padmanabhan, S. Y. (1973). The great Bengal famine. Annual Review of Phytopathology, 11, 11–24.
Sen, A. (1981). Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Clarendon Press.
Sen, E. (1944). Darkening Days: Being a Narrative of Famine-stricken Bengal. Susil Gupta.
Sontag, S. (2003). Regarding the Pain of Others. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Sunderason, S. (2017). Shadow-Lines: Zainul Abedin and the afterlives of the Bengal Famine of 1943. Third Text, 31(2–3), 239–259. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2017.1381426
Vernon, J. (2007). Hunger: A Modern History. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Government of India, Famine Inquiry Commission. (1945). Report on Bengal. Manager of Publications.
British Museum. (n.d.). Zainul Abedin: Drawing from the Bengal Famine series (1943–44) [Collection record]. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_2012-3027-1
The Daily Star. (2024, March 23). Zainul Abedin's painting sold for record $381,000. https://www.thedailystar.net/entertainment/theatre-arts/news/zainul-abedins-painting-sold-record-381000-3573121
Mukerjee, M. (2010). Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II. Basic Books.
Ginwala, N. (2017). So many hungers. South Magazine (Issue 8). documenta 14. https://www.documenta14.de/en/south/888_so_many_hungers
Ray, P. (2017). Zainul Abedin (1914–1976). documenta 14. https://www.documenta14.de/en/notes-and-works/24940/zainul-abedin-1914-1976-
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Moniruzzaman Moniruzzaman, Aditto Na
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
