AMOL VADEHRA ART GRANT 2019-20 | ANNOUNCING THE RECIPIENT
SOUMYA SANKAR BOSE, for his project: WHERE THE BIRDS NEVER SING
The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) is delighted to announce that the Amol Vadehra Art Grant 2019-20 will support the work and research of artist Soumya Sankar Bose for his project ‘Where the Birds Never Sing’.
The three-member jury for the Award comprised Anjum Singh, Radhika Chopra and Roshini Vadehra. They found it to be a very well-conceived project with promising outcomes, and an exemplar representation of the grant’s purview. They felt that it harnessed a very critical effort to approach the events and aftereffects of the Marichjhapi Massacre across visual and textual media, bringing to light the nature of historical retellings around the complex archival layers that exist in memory, fiction, orality, and representation.
The Amol Vadehra Art Grant is a production grant and is aimed at supporting an Indian artist under the age of 40 years to develop a body of works. The duration of the grant is one year and the funds of Rs 2 lakhs can be used to cover the artist’s direct costs towards creative development and production of a body of artworks.
The Amol Vadehra Art Grant will allow Soumya to continue his research into the Marichjhapi island massacre and its aftermath, to its culmination in the forms of photobook and film. Following the contrived history of the massacre, he will utilize existing documentation through textual and visual material and portraits of survivors, engaging in archival research around the stories from the historically outcasted region and communities. Given the historically and archivally complex understanding that exists of the events, Soumya attempts to resurrect and explore histories and fictions.
About the Artist
Soumya Sankar Bose born and brought up in Midnapore, a small town near Kolkata (India). He has previously received grants from Magnum Foundation, India Foundation for the Arts, Goethe Institut and Henry Luce Foundation, among others. In 2019, He was one of the participant of World Press Photo's Joop Swart Masterclass . Now lives in Kolkata. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, NPR, Granta, The Telegraph, BBC, The Caravan, Conde Nast. His work has also been shown in Houston Center For Photography, Indian Art Fair,Sepia Eye, Goethe-Institut, Experimenter, Delhi Photo Festival and many more.
Image Courtesy: Soumya Sankar Bose, Sundarban during High Tide from the series 'Where the Birds Never Sing', 2019