Sushavan Nandy
I am Sushavan Nandy, self-taught freelance photographer based in Naihati, West Bengal India.
After completing my diploma in animation I worked as a project manager at a game developing agency from 2009 to 2014.
Later, in 2014 I started working with a stock-photo agency in Kolkata, India. MY work focuses on long-term photographic projects on issues of climate change and human crises.
After working for 2 years in a photo agency, I started losing interest in my work at the agency. The experiences I had while working on assignments were reduced to captioned single images. Also, the stories were reported in such a manner that they lost their complexities. Thus I quit my photography agency job in 2016 and started working on long-term projects.
For me, photography is the means but the true aim has always been to use images in a way that looks at social issues through a different lens and gives voice to the disposed and marginalised.
I was International Photography Grant Nominee, 2018 and was part of group exhibition objective in Singapore 2018. I was finalist of Invisible Asia photo contest in 2018.
EDUCATION:
2009, Diploma in Animation Engineering
WORK EXPERIENCE:
2009-2014 Project Manager at Axis Gaming Animation Company
2014-2015 Staff Photographer at Photospeaks
HONOURS:
Finalist, Invisible Photographer Asia, Documentary Awards 2018
International Photography Grant Nominee 2018
IPF Photography Grant shortlisted 2019
6×6 Global Talent nomination 2020
Field Notes Zine contest winer 2020
Magazine publication:
New York Magazine (2017)
Vogue India Magazine (2020)
MIT Technology Review Magazine (2020)
Interview :
Foto room 2018
British Journal of photography 2019
Gobe Magazine 2020
Exhibitions :
Digital projection at Objectifs, Singapore 2018
Angkor 16th Edition photo festival Projection Screening in Cambodia 2020
Instagram take over :
Open Society Foundation 2018.
Angkor photo fest 2020.
Workshops Attended:
Experimenter Learning Program under -Sohrab Hura in Kolkata India.
Visual Thinking workshop under – Katrin Koenning. In Nepal.
Website
sushavannandy.wordpress.com
Email Isushavan@gmail.com
@Sushavan_Nandy
Exhibition
Ebbing away of identity with the tides
We know what we are, but not what we may be. The quote from Hamlet gets personified in the islands like Mousuni, Ghoramara and Sagar. These islands located in the Gangetic delta region are disappearing and so are the people who have lived here. The very river they hold sacred, is now encroaching, engulfing, devouring the land with each tidal flood. The villagers are not aware what climate change is, they are unaware of the term “sea level rise”, but their lives are the very testament to it. They have lost the courtyard where they have played, they have lost the trees from which they used to swing in their childhood, they have lost the bed where they made love. As the land beneath their feet got washed away, they have lost their roots. Some of them migrated and got lost in the bonds of bonded labourers, while others re-built their homes only to see the walls crumble a few years later. The already unknown people of these lonesome islands are spending one day at a time, unsure of their own identity. It is not a easy feeling to see your home, your land, your place which has witnessed generations of a family’s history, get disappeared without any fault of their own. It is like getting uprooted and getting your legacy, your identity dissolved among waves and winds.
The saline water destroyed the farms. Peasants had to weave up fishing nets. Later when they had no place to hang them dry, they had to leave. Many women even do not have that luck to escape. Many of them who had took a boat ride one day to these islands, with a dream of a happy married life, now live a lonely sorrow life as their husband left her side and the sinking land mass to earn livelihood elsewhere. It is said that “who we are is who we were”. But one will find an exception to that here on these islands. They know who they were, but they don’t know who they are and who they will be. Their lives are floating over invading waves, floating just enough high on a wind that has no steady direction.
I am Sushavan Nandy, self-taught freelance photographer based in Naihati, West Bengal India.
After completing my diploma in animation I worked as a project manager at a game developing agency from 2009 to 2014.
Later, in 2014 I started working with a stock-photo agency in Kolkata, India. MY work focuses on long-term photographic projects on issues of climate change and human crises.
After working for 2 years in a photo agency, I started losing interest in my work at the agency. The experiences I had while working on assignments were reduced to captioned single images. Also, the stories were reported in such a manner that they lost their complexities. Thus I quit my photography agency job in 2016 and started working on long-term projects.
For me, photography is the means but the true aim has always been to use images in a way that looks at social issues through a different lens and gives voice to the disposed and marginalised.
I was International Photography Grant Nominee, 2018 and was part of group exhibition objective in Singapore 2018. I was finalist of Invisible Asia photo contest in 2018.
EDUCATION:
2009, Diploma in Animation Engineering
WORK EXPERIENCE:
2009-2014 Project Manager at Axis Gaming Animation Company
2014-2015 Staff Photographer at Photospeaks
HONOURS:
Finalist, Invisible Photographer Asia, Documentary Awards 2018
International Photography Grant Nominee 2018
IPF Photography Grant shortlisted 2019
6×6 Global Talent nomination 2020
Field Notes Zine contest winer 2020
Magazine publication:
New York Magazine (2017)
Vogue India Magazine (2020)
MIT Technology Review Magazine (2020)
Interview :
Foto room 2018
British Journal of photography 2019
Gobe Magazine 2020
Exhibitions :
Digital projection at Objectifs, Singapore 2018
Angkor 16th Edition photo festival Projection Screening in Cambodia 2020
Instagram take over :
Open Society Foundation 2018.
Angkor photo fest 2020.
Workshops Attended:
Experimenter Learning Program under -Sohrab Hura in Kolkata India.
Visual Thinking workshop under – Katrin Koenning. In Nepal.
Website
sushavannandy.wordpress.com
Email Isushavan@gmail.com
We know what we are, but not what we may be. The quote from Hamlet gets personified in the islands like Mousuni, Ghoramara and Sagar. These islands located in the Gangetic delta region are disappearing and so are the people who have lived here. The very river they hold sacred, is now encroaching, engulfing, devouring the land with each tidal flood. The villagers are not aware what climate change is, they are unaware of the term “sea level rise”, but their lives are the very testament to it. They have lost the courtyard where they have played, they have lost the trees from which they used to swing in their childhood, they have lost the bed where they made love. As the land beneath their feet got washed away, they have lost their roots. Some of them migrated and got lost in the bonds of bonded labourers, while others re-built their homes only to see the walls crumble a few years later. The already unknown people of these lonesome islands are spending one day at a time, unsure of their own identity. It is not a easy feeling to see your home, your land, your place which has witnessed generations of a family’s history, get disappeared without any fault of their own. It is like getting uprooted and getting your legacy, your identity dissolved among waves and winds.
The saline water destroyed the farms. Peasants had to weave up fishing nets. Later when they had no place to hang them dry, they had to leave. Many women even do not have that luck to escape. Many of them who had took a boat ride one day to these islands, with a dream of a happy married life, now live a lonely sorrow life as their husband left her side and the sinking land mass to earn livelihood elsewhere. It is said that “who we are is who we were”. But one will find an exception to that here on these islands. They know who they were, but they don’t know who they are and who they will be. Their lives are floating over invading waves, floating just enough high on a wind that has no steady direction.