In a unique artistic combination photographer Sonali Sarkar and inter-disciplinary artiste Prajna Dutta combined photographs and poetry to form a visual treat during a recent exhibition at the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). Harmony was curated by the Anthelion School of Art and included all things artistic like handicrafts, hand–paintings, photography, live workshops, cultural performances, and more.
Dipayan Banerjee, CEO, of Anthelion School of Art explains the exhibition and school, “Anthelion School of Art, established in 2017 teaches art and organises art-based events for students and associated artists to showcase their skills and sell art. In our endeavour to make our students stronger, in 2019, we started ‘Harmony’ which aims at blending Fine Arts with Performance Arts.”
The most notable presentation in this edition was the amalgamation of poetry and photographs. Photographer Sonali Sarkar mentions, “The overall theme is Nature-Life balance. So our section is poetry fused with photographs which is one of the unique aspects of this exhibition. Poetry, we thought would give a unique element to the display. The photographs are captured from all across the globe like Rome, Kerala, Santiniketan, Paris, Nepal, and Jaipur. We also have photographs in black and white from places like Rome, Murshidabad, New York, and Kolkata.”
Talking about giving poetic captions to Soanli’s photographs, Prajna Dutta says, “If you look at the photographs which were on display you would find that all of them have stories attached to them. Looking at them as just photographs and allowing yourself to think, will make you come up with stories yourself. For me, the choice of the form of poetry was also important. I chose Haiku to make the captions. It is short and has the capability of conveying a narration, structure, experience, or moment. That’s what made Haiku perfect in this case.”
When asked to recall some photographs that he could connect to, Dutta recalls, “I liked the photograph of an ancient, archaic pillar which was surrounded by shadows. It’s as if I can hear ancient whispers. These are not just whispers of our past but also whispers coming out and going back to nowhere. This formed a beautiful aural imagery.”
Harmony saw the participation of around 30 students from the Anthelion School of Arts along with 14 eminent artists like Anjan Bhattacharyya, Rajib Sur Roy, Debadeep Ghosh, Subrata Ghosh, Vani Chawla, Jiban Biswas, and others; and five photographers with a display of over 100 artworks.
Photograph of Sonali Sarkar by Pritam Sarkar