'I had a love-hate relationship with Dhaka,' says Farhana Syeda about the capital of Bangladesh. 'But it was there that I learned everything I needed to know.' She lived there from 1989 to 2002, and returned in 2005. Suddenly she saw all sorts of new things, but literally and figuratively. For instance, the number of high-rise buildings had increased dramatically, just as had the number of slums. They were a lot less birds: to a great extent nature had been routed by advertising billboards. On the other hand, the flood of new residents had swollen. All were seeking something - work, studies, love - just as Farhana Syeda had in 1989. Her astonishment about Dhaka remains, she says. Every street corner still offers a new story. 'My quest to understand the city goes on.'

Farhana Syeda (Bangladesh, b. 1972) graduated from Patshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography, and previously did poetic reportages on the life of Muslims who emigrated to India from Bangladesh. For DHAKA, A CITY OF MANY LAYERS (2004-2005) she took multiple photographs on the same negative.