Jyoti Omi Chowdhury

Jyoti Omi Chowdhury was born in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, which in his opinion is infamous for torrential rain and back alley cricket. His formative years were spent daydreaming about art, politics and sports under the cusp of a military dictatorship. He moved to the wilderness of the American prairies and western Canada for his university education, and eventually wound his way to Harvard. In between all this tiptoeing, rapidly developing wanderlust, he began to research and write on genocide, gender equity, war theory, and liberalism. During his PhD research and fieldwork, he found an outlet in photography.

Omi’s photography exhibits the equipoise between space and human identity. Most of his photographs were taken at various warzones and dictatorships, from Somalia to Burma. Instead of replicating and imitating the dire conditions that are part and parcel of human existence within these warzones, Chowdhury’s photography captures the levity, beauty, and randomness of people’s lives in these places. It is ultimately an homage to undying human spirit that refuses to wither even in the most desperate of circumstances. He has also ventured into the world of fashion photography and has photographed ballerinas, yogis and fashion models for various spreads and sub-shoots. Omi has had three solo shows in Berlin, Boston and Ann Arbor, respectively. His work has been featured in LAT, Vogue Italia and in galleries in Chicago, Indianapolis, Prague, Munich and Abu Dhabi. Omi will also be doing an installment for the Smithsonian in Dec 2013.

Browse all Jyoti Omi Chowdhury’s contributions in Light & Composition