In Person: Nirobodhi/Till Time Stands Still with Sarker Protick
In this episode of In Person, Sarker Protick—pedagogue, artist and curator—speaks with Rahaab Allana and walks us through his exhibition Nirobodhi/Till Time Stands Still, approaching its end date at Shrine Empire Gallery, New Delhi. The exhibition, which veers between archival interventions, historical re-readings and spaces lost to time, collectively traces the artist’s engagement with the territories of psychology and liminality.
Jirno, a dreamlike work produced in interstitial zones/borderlands taken over by nature and devoid of human presence, engages in a historical remapping of territory and spatiality. Upon abandoned lands rest erstwhile lavish homes, residences and other secular structures—all fought for or lost to time—during the struggle for Indian Independence, and the simultaneous Partition of Bengal in 1947. More than 75 years later, these spaces now tell other stories of outlying areas that need to be re-traced as free zones, beyond the conception of the “national” or “nationalistic”, as the otherworldly and autonomous.
The permanence of ruin/ruined territory also leads us into an inner chamber of the gallery, where we encounter Protick’s second body of work, Mr and Mrs Das. The work references the personal and affective sensibilities of photography, further mediated through archival photographs of Protick’s grandparents, which cover their journey and what appear to be moments from their later years. The images lend a surreal, if not illuminated sense of fragility, sentience and substance.
Walking across the gallery to a room at the far corner, we encounter a multichannel work titled Rasmi, a reference to light, optics, science and all that lies in time’s receding horizon. Completed during the lockdown, the soundscape of static disturbance and short-circuiting image constructs transport us to a subconscious mindscape that instinctively helps us read, map, and create the world through sensory triggers.
Sarker Protick employs photography, video and sound to produce works built on long-term engagements rooted in Bangladesh. He studied at the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute in Dhaka, where he has been teaching for the last nine years. He is also the co-curator of Chobi Mela, the longest-running international photography festival in Asia.
(Featured Image: Installation view of Nirobodhi/Till Time Stands Still at Shrine Empire, New Delhi. 2022. Video by Ghanishka Kedar.)
To learn more about Protick’s practice, listen to his interview here and here.
In case you missed the previous episodes of In Person, you can watch the latest episodes here, here and here.
