In Person: Soumya Sankar Bose on Where the Birds Never Sing

For the fifth episode of In Person, we speak with Soumya Sankar Bose about his second solo show, Where the Birds Never Sing (2017–20) currently on view at Experimenter Gallery, Kolkata. The show brings together Bose’s long-term project on the 1979 Marichjhapi massacre in the Sunderbans in West Bengal, India. It traces the history of the forcible eviction of hundreds of Bengali Dalit refugees who lived on the reserve forest land on Marichjhapi Island and the subsequent death of the refugees by police gunfire, starvation and disease in the wake of the event.

West Bengal has witnessed various manifestations of violence in the aftermath of the Partition and its geo-politics is persistently challenged by this complex history. The incident of Marichjhapi remains entirely marginalised within contemporary political dialogues. In this episode, Bose sheds light on his curiosity about this event and how he engages with the archive, oral history and elements of fantasy to arrive at this work.

Soumya Sankar Bose lives and works in Kolkata. He holds a diploma in photography from Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, Dhaka. Awarded the 2020 Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art's Amol Vadehra Art Grant, his photobook Where the Birds Never Sing was shortlisted for the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards 2020. Bose was part of World Press Photo's Joop Swart Masterclass, 2019. In 2018, Bose was awarded Magnum Foundation’s Migration and Religion Grant, preceded by Magnum Foundation’s Photography and Social Justice Fellowship Award for his project Full Moon on a Dark Night in 2017.

^{(Featured Image: Where the Birds Never Sing. 2017–20. Inkjet Print on Archival Paper. 81.5 × 48 inches.)}

Live Streamed on 2 August 2021

To read more about Soumya Sankar Bose, please click here.

In case you missed the previous episodes of In Person, you can catch the most recent ones here, here and here.