23rd Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Artistic
The freedom bell 2

A solitary figure stands on the shoreline, her face veiled, a green dress billowing in the wind. Where her features should be, an embroidered butterfly hovers in their place, fragile, symbolic, defiant. The image plays on concealment and revelation, turning anonymity into agency. At once haunting and intimate, it reflects the double binds of visibility that women in Bangladesh, and beyond, must navigate, between protection and erasure, exposure and control. The veil here becomes more than a covering: it is both shield and statement, an emblem of survival within patriarchal systems that regulate how women are seen. The butterfly, stitched where a face should be, evokes transformation, resilience, and the desire for flight. In its stillness, the image captures the quiet power of those who resist domination not through confrontation, but through presence, through the insistence on being seen, even while unseen.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 05.2024
Date Uploaded: 11.2025
Photo Location: Bangladesh
Camera: NIKON D610
Copyright: © Mithail Afrige Chowdhury