Sea Beach, an exhibition by Ismail Ferdous

SEA BEACH

Sea Beach is woven from threads of my childhood memories.

I first visited Cox’s Bazar as a young boy, it was my parents' first holiday together. While we were there my grandmother said to me, "Don't go too deep into the water, as you cannot swim." When my mom encouraged me to play in the waves, her sari catching the breeze, I'd hear my grandmother's caution. It wasn’t until adulthood that I braved the water and swam.

Growing up in Dhaka, I returned throughout my youth, first with family and later with friends. From early days playing in its sands to coming of age through the free roaming of adolescence, and now decades on returning as an adult, this beach on the Bay of Bengal has remained an enduring presence in my life.

In my twenties, curiosity led me across oceans and I eventually settled in New York. Over the decade since, I have traveled widely photographing human migration, natural and human made disaster, war and conflict. Throughout, I’ve been drawn to the culture of coastlines. 

 In 2017 I returned to Cox’s Bazar. History had turned swaths into safe haven for more than a million Rohingya fleeing ethnic cleansing from Myanmar. Over four years, I documented the profound human displacement.

 The beach was just over the hills from the refugee camps, but it was not until early 2020 that I found time to return to the shores of my youth. My gaze by now was tinted by the tides of other oceans, and returning to Cox’s Bazar felt like stepping into the corridors of memory attuned by distance in time and space.

Cox’s Bazar is where people from across the districts, dialects, religions and social strata of Bangladesh come together, as if in diorama. Ordinary life is illuminated by refraction of sunlight on sea animating the rich breadth of Bengali and indigenous cultural heritage. 

Marine Drive reveals dense forests to the east giving way to lush hills, and finally expansive sands to the west. What was once Angel Drop lookout has been replaced by enormous sandbags holding back rising tides. Where the highway descends towards Dolphin Circle, life in Cox’s Bazar carries on as it has. The air holds the scent of salt and affection.

 The journey outward leads inward, and the further I have traveled, the more I have come to perceive the landscapes of origin. Sea Beach is touchstone and gateway. Waves repeat endless cycles of departure and return, as with every shoreline on Earth, and we find a communal crossroad here between vastness and intimacy.