Aftab traveled to Bangladesh in February 2019 for a research, development and photography project, looking at the waterways in Bangladesh. The aim was to explore lessons that could be shared from Birmingham and Bangladesh. Bangladesh is famed for its rivers and Birmingham has more canals than Venice;Bangladesh faces a challenge of cleaning up its waterways with its growing plastic pollution; Birmingham’s canals have been cleaned up and developed as a major tourist attraction; Bangladesh uses its waterways to cultivate food, growing fish in ponds is a common practise and more recent developments are the floating vegetable gardens. There are valuable lessons to be learned from each place.
Aftab took over 1,000 photos whilst in Bangladesh,showcasing 16 of these in apop-up exhibition. The photos were all auctioned off and money donated to a water filtration project in Bangladesh . This was featured on BBC Midlands Today, sparking the debate of how the waterways in Birmingham can be used to cultivate food.
