Photography as Archive: The Self and Other in Isolation: An Interview with Saiful Huq Omi, followed by The Human that Is Lacking: A response to Saiful Huq Omi's photograph

In this interview, Yousif M. Qasmiyeh enters into conversation with Saiful Huq Omi, an award-winning photographer and filmmaker and founder of Counter Foto-A Centre for Visual Arts in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on issues spanning from photography in the era of COVID and what it means, in this situation of stasis and containment worldwide, to continue photographing; to the intimate as revealed by the photograph; photographing (across) different geographies and national borders; on Rohingya refugees as both the photographed and the unphotographed; the archive and the afterlives of photography; and, finally, how to envision an equitable future between the photographer and the photographed. In the form of poetic fragments, “The Human that is Lacking” offers a response to Saiful Huq Omi's photograph reproduced in these pages, in an attempt to “co-see” the image with the photographer. The image and its response sit alongside Yousif M. Qasmiyeh's interview with the award-winning photographer and film-maker himself (also in this issue).