Photographer Fouzia Jahan has portrayed characters from Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s renowned novel ‘Shesher Kobita’ to promote reading habits among youths in her first solo exhibition under way at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.

The exhibition titled ‘Shesher Kobita’ is displaying photographs at the National Art Gallery of the BSA at Segun Bagicha in the capital.

The exhibition funded by a cultural affairs ministry grant in association with City Bank is featuring a single photo story comprising 69 photographs depicting the love story of Amit Ray and Labanya.

Indian actor Parambrata Chattopadhyay posed as Amit while Shreya Sen depicted the character of Labanya. Besides, Shashwta Datta, Shiri Farhana and others portrayed other characters from the novel.

‘A photo story can help people understand the meaning of a written text. The photographs give the audience a glimpse into characters from the novel,’ said Fouzia Jahan.

‘The habit of reading books among youths has been declining. The photo story aims at encouraging people to read literature,’ added Fouzia, who researched the novel for two years and took photographs in April.

‘Many people said they have read the novel but did not understand it. I hope that they will develop a better understanding of the novel after watching this photo story accompanied by captions. Shreya Sen wrote and edited captions for the story,’ mentioned Fouzia.

‘I love to create photo stories and, therefore, I am looking forward to pursuing similar projects. I hope that in the future novels will be published with photo stories,’ ended Fouzia.

The exhibition was inaugurated on Friday and a photo book titled ‘Shesher Kobita’ was unveiled at the inaugural ceremony.

The exhibition will end today.