World Press Photo comes to Bangladesh

The international World Press Photo exhibition, which celebrates the best in photojournalism  worldwide, opened in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Thursday (26 April) at the renowned Drik Gallery. It is the first international exhibit of World Press Photo, after its launch in Amsterdam earlier this week.
World Press Photo is one of the world's most prestigious photojournalism awards. It originates in the Netherlands, where the first competition was held in 1955. An international jury, with 19 members, selects entries in nine different categories. It also awards prizes to the best works in each category.
This year, over 100,000 photographs were entered by more than 5,000 photographers from 124 countries.
This year's grand prize was awarded to Samuel Aranda for a photograph he took in Yemen of a tear gas victim in a street demonstration in Sanaa.
After the contest, an international exhibition travels around the world to over a hundred venues.
The Dhaka exhibition was first organised in 1993 by Drik, an independent multimedia organisation set up by Bangladeshi photographer and activist Shahidul Alam, who has used his photography to document the decades-long struggle for peace and democracy in his own country.
When Drik wanted to open a World Press Photo exhibit in 1993, it was refused access to mostly state-owned art galleries or exhibition centres. Instead, it opened its own gallery, which still host the annual World Press Photo exhibition today. This year's edition was opened by the Dutch ambassador in Bangladesh.
The exhibition features over 160 works from the winning photographers from all nine categories.