বিদেশের চিঠি / A Love Letter from Dreamland presents a collection of artworks created by first-generation Bangladeshi-Australian women living in Victoria. Developed through a socially engaged art-research project led by artist and researcher Mita Chowdhury, the exhibition brings together the voices of ten first-generation Bangladeshi-Australian women through drawing, painting, textiles, writing and mixed-media works that reflect on migration, memory, identity and belonging.

Through six creative workshops, participants shared personal stories, memories and experiences of building a life between cultures, reflecting on how they create home and the at-home feelings within a bicultural context. The resulting artworks capture moments of nostalgia, resilience, adaptation and achievement, offering intimate insights into the complexities of living between cultures.
The exhibition celebrates the voices and creative contributions of Bangladeshi-Australian women while inviting audiences to reflect on home, re-rooting, re-grounding and the ongoing negotiation of belonging in a new country.

বিদেশ (Bidesh) / The Foreign Land is an imagined utopian dreamland deeply embedded within the Bangladeshi cultural imagination. Shaped by a long colonial history and an ever-changing political landscape, Bidesh represents a place of promise, opportunity and aspiration—a destination many long to reach regardless of class, gender, socio-economic status or religion.

But what happens when we arrive? How does or how much this imagined dreamland change when it becomes part of everyday life? How does the memory of home remain with us, and how do we create the new home and the sense of belonging in a new place through acts of remembering, recreating and reconnecting?

বিদেশের চিঠি / A Love Letter from Dreamland explores these questions through artworks created by first-generation Bangladeshi-Australian women. Together, the works reveal the ambiguities, complexities and possibilities of living between cultures, offering reflections on migration, home-making and the ongoing negotiation of belonging. 

Image credit: To, Dear Anita By Dr Anita Ali