Bengali Photo Archive
The Swadhinata Trust, in partnership with Four Corners, launched the Bengali photo archive project in East London in 2022. In 2026, the archive was deposited in the Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives.
The HLF-funded project with Four Corners had delivered a key element of Four Corners’ Heritage Fund project, Hidden Histories. It investigated, tested, and developed a local Bengali photography archive as part of Four Corners’ Hidden Histories Heritage Fund project. The Swadhinata Trust helped with the project’s research and development and provided access to Bengali photographers, communities and families.
The two-year project began in April 2021, developing and creating a new archive
of local family photographs from the Bengali community, and a physical home for
several existing archives of the Bengali community’s activism.
The photographs, alongside accompanying oral history interviews and one-minute film interviews, were shown on the Four Corners archive website and are housed at Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives.
- The photos will remain online at https://bengaliphotoarchive.co.uk/
- Videos of the project can be viewed here https://bengaliphotoarchive.co.uk/Video