Poulomi Basu is known for her work advocating for the rights of marginalised women using the power of photography as a tool for storytelling, amplifying women’s voices from the majority world. Basu's solo exhibition Fireflies, curated by Bindi Vora was held at Autograph's gallery in London in March - June 2022. Here, we're sharing highlights from the exhibition with Basu's words.
In her deeply emotive and powerful exhibition, the Indian artist and activist foregrounds the relationship between mother and daughter. Using photography, video and sound, Basu reflects on experiences of trauma – particularly patriarchal violence – navigating the claustrophobia of home, dreams of freedom, defiance, and transcendence.
Inspired by magical realism, eco-feminism and dystopian science fiction, Basu carefully orchestrates her images against the celestial beauty of the natural world. She weaves together the real and the fantastical to create a charged psychological landscape: capturing moments of love and closeness, the intensity of traumatic memory, and experiences that cannot be put into words.
Please note some of the artworks depict nudity and deal with sensitive issues including trauma.
“Fireflies is a response to the trauma of my own background as told through the relationship between my mother and I… this work navigates the blood lines of our collective trauma, mapping an elemental journey of survival. The work is an act of embodied activism. It is an act of sharing one’s way of listening to the body, listening to the earth and each other, in a way that supports others to do the same.“
“Fireflies is about having agency over issues of shame and seeing our bodies as a space of political warfare and self-love. From the claustrophobia of the home, through to dreams of escape and transcendence, this is a kinetic and spiritual work lingering on the fragility of time and our earthly insignificance when contrasted against the celestial wonder of the natural world.”
"The work navigates the intersections of embodiment and social justice, and in so doing, becomes about dismantling oppression, and essentially resurrection, which form the larger themes in the work. These works are an accumulation of stories about women, the environment, and about systemic violence that I deeply care for and that I feel need to be addressed."
"Trauma is so hard to process, and the triggers are so fierce that you almost avoid every single space and every single conversation that can trigger the trauma until you finally find yourself on a day when you are ready to face it. It’s taken until now for my mother and I to both feel ready to tell our story."
"Fireflies is intergalactic, it grapples with science fiction and the fantastical – it provides a way of envisaging your world now and your world in another dimension – a space of freedom and transcendence. I see this as a brave new world where survivors of domestic violence can find themselves in a space that is their own, one they can build and nurture."
"When I was 17, my mother told me to leave home so that I would be able to live a life of freedom and choice that had been denied to her, and my grandmother, who were both child brides and then young widows. On a regular basis my mother was reminded that her life was never her own and it was controlled by men."
"The work moves between Calcutta and otherworldly landscapes shot across different parts of the world, including Iceland. I want to express the idea that there is another world that will soon be realised, and women are going to be in the centre of it: they are going to create and build that world."
"Women are powerful and magical yet there is a lot of struggles laced in our history and constant battleground of misogyny and patriarchy. There is so much pain, anxiety, and fear behind most women I have met in life including myself. Yet we are strong and magical. I want to celebrate both those dualities."
Poulomi Basu (b. 1983, India) has become widely known for her influential photographic projects Blood Speaks, Centralia, and To Conquer Her Land, to name a few. Her first photobook Centralia was published by Dewi Lewis in 2020. The book and exhibition won the 2020 Rencontres d'Arles Discovery Award Jury Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. Basu is a Sundance Fellow, National Geographic Explorer, and Magnum Foundation Social Justice Fellow. Her works are part of public collections, including Autograph, London (UK); Martin Parr Foundation (UK); Museum of Modern Art (Special Collections) (USA); Rencontres d’Arles (FR); Victoria and Albert (UK), amongst others.
You can follow Basu on Instagram, and see more of the artist's work on her website.
Virtually visit Fireflies, Poulomi Basu's deeply emotive and powerful exhibition at Autograph
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Autograph is a place to see things differently. Since 1988, we have championed photography that explores issues of race, identity, representation, human rights and social justice, sharing how photographs reflect lived experiences and shape our understanding of ourselves and others.
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