July 5 – September 28, 2025
In celebration of her participation as a Guest Critic for our inaugural Handmade Book exhibition (curated by Sangyon Joo from Datz Press), the Griffin Museum of Photography is pleased to present an online exhibition by Laila Nahar. The show centers on three of her projects: Rituals — a set of two books, Face to Faith and Puja — and Lost Space Living In Our Mind. With their complex book structures, vibrant imagery and print manipulation, these visual and tactile feasts take us on a meditative journey through memory, time, and place.
We are thankful to Nahar for deliberately spending time with each book of our Handmade Photobook exhibit, and selecting six of them for a spotlight feature on the Fine Art Photography Journal, LENSCRATCH.
Lost Space Living In Our Minds
Jaya Mishra, Tanveer Khonker & Laila Nahar
Lost Space Living in Our Mind is a handmade artist monograph about living in a place and the experience while revealing the place as both a subject and a collaborator. The book emerged when the novelty, particularity and excitement faded away. It was born from the feelings that seeped in the depths of our soul, into our existence. When acceptance and contradictions of the moment lost its grip on us. It is the sudden deep breath that pauses everything and the moment spreads through our existence. Just the hopping of a little bird, the sudden darkening of the sky in anticipation of monsoon rain, or the woman on the roof taking a moment of pause to look at the sky after hanging the washed clothes. Suddenly we are freed from the moment; something rises like the swelling tide. It is a book when feelings and remembrance become the reflection of each other.
The book starts with the collage from cut-out photos with pastels and text. Delving into scattered memories and realizations, we forged a nonlinear storyline of places embarking on a slow journey. The exploration pushed our inner and outer boundaries, confronting vulnerabilities. It spans across multiple spaces having been interconnected through memories or absence of it. One memory has led to the recollection of another from an entirely different time and place. The places have all bled into a single collage made of vivid yet intangible moments. Perhaps, it is not about a specific place at all, but more about the idea of the place itself. The new context of the experience is created with writings by three protagonists.
Rituals: Face to Faith and Puja
Tanveer Khondker & Laila Nahar
Face to Faith
When religion is reduced to an individual, when the religious rituals and categorizations are taken away; what remains in the heart of a pilgrim? What remains between a man* and the god? Is it still of significance what the man* is called or the God is named? The book attempts to understand and capture the sublime calmness and depth in the connection of a soul to the oneness.
I was trying to grasp and capture what is there in the shades of faith in the pilgrims of the old city of Jerusalem. To me, I see familiar expression on every pilgrim’s face – on the western wall, inside the Dome of Rock and the Church of Holy Sepulchre. It was of deep faith, vulnerability of human existence and, lamenting the loss of ancient cause. The old city has three of the world’s most important religious sites. Just behind the Wailing Wall which is considered the holiest for Jews, I could see the glittering Dome of the Rock, which houses the rock from where Muslims believe the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven. And only minutes away is the pilgrim-thronged Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrows), which follows the Stations of the Cross to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the site where Jesus is believed to have been crucified.
By end of day, to me, all faces in the sacred sites of Christianity, Jewish and Islam became one – every pilgrim in the congregations or prayers was same to me. It is painful to conceive, for centuries, religions fight over the narratives of Jerusalem and the custody of its stones.
The outside of the book stands as a wall depicting the walled city of Jerusalem while the inside of the accordion shows the pilgrims devoted into rituals from three religion.
*The origin of the word man is gender neutral
Rituals: Face to Faith and Puja
The ritual of puja is founded in religion, but it is far more expansive in the lives of Hindu culture. It runs deep through personal, family and social life. It is the rituals of love, blessings, togetherness and health; the search for enlightenment and depth; seeking meaning to life and death. It is joyous, it is humbling and it is liberating from personal constraints. It is submission to connections to within and to without.
The rituals of puja are means to comprehend and appreciate our spiritual self and the connection to oneness. It is to understand that the pride and individuality is an illusion. It is not that homage is paid to multiple gods but it is to view and experience the oneness through multiple windows.
It is like the soothing translucent aachal of her saree that wraps as all in her warmth.
About the artist –
Laila Nahar is a lens-based artist and bookmaker in California, USA. She lived her life in stark cultural contrast, born and brought up in Bangladesh and eventually migrating to the USA. She is primarily a self-taught photographer and book-artist exploring belonging, memory, cultural and collective identity. Her background from Bangladesh continues to shape her artistic identity and her work goes back to her roots in the Indian subcontinent, namely Bangladesh and India.
Laila’s handmade photo artist booksappeared in several exhibitions, including Griffin Museum of Photography, Photobookjournal.com, UnBound13! Candela Books + Gallery Exhibit and has won several awards, including Lucie Photo Book Prize Independent Category, DUMMY AWARD24 Shortlist, Athens Photo Festival APhF:24 Finalist, 19th Singapore International Photo Festival Finalist etc. Her books are in permanent collections of several libraries and museums, including University of Colorado Libraries (Boulder), The Fleet Library (RISD), Boatwright Memorial Library (University of Richmond, Virginia), Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Harvey Milk Photo Book Center amongst others.
Laila attended CODEX 2024 with seven of her handmade artist photo books.
