Dr. Reena Kukreja recently curated My Life Here / Amar Jibon Aikhaney, a multi-media exhibition by first generation Bangladeshi migrant men and women who live and work in Venice, Marghera, and Mestre.
The exhibition was held at Fablab Venezia's headquarters at the HuB – Human Bits in Mestre, Italy, between April 10 and April 17, 2026.
ϳԹԴ the exhibit:
Amar Jibon Aikhaney translated from Bangla as ‘My Life Here’ is a collaborative creative project undertaken by first generation Bangladeshi migrant men and women who live and work in Venice, Marghera and Mestre. ‘My Life Here’ places emphasis on ‘here’. Here refers to the space of Italy and Venice where their identity as racialized, Bangladeshi and Muslim migrants intersects with their gender identity to shape their everyday lives.
The collaboration draws on the participatory action visual research method of Photovoice with its emancipatory and social-justice goal to present perspectives from societally marginalized groups. During the summer of 2025, Dr. Reena Kukreja from ϳԹԴ, Canada worked with diverse first-generation Bangladeshi migrants on a rapid Photovoice process. This short duration photovoice research lasted three weeks.
The migrant-participants, numbering fifteen in total, either work in the tourist sector as owners of souvenir shops, bancarelle (street stalls) and fast-food shops, are employed as baristas, bar tenders, cleaners or dishwashers at hotels and restaurants, build cruise ships at the Fincantieri shipyard in Marghera, or have reunited with family members as spouses. They used their cell phones to take photographs and narrate their stories via WhatsApp, a free phone app.
This exhibition puts together their voices and testimonies, visual and oral, that they consider important to share with the larger world. In the voice of one participant, “through this exhibition, our hope is to have a ‘dialogo’ or dialogue with people who use our services and labour but never ‘see’ us as humans. They ‘see through’ us.”