08 Feb The Wounds

This work has been done in the house of Kalikanondo Chattopadhyay in Shatkhira for the third episode of Uronto Residential Exchange Program. The people (who came as migrants of may be living by generations ) of that area have a lot of experiences during riots in undivided Bengal, the partition, liberation war, those still remains as a wound in memory for many people who are now living around the house.

Artist wanted to portray the fear and nightmares of the people who migrated in the surrounding of the Palace of Kalikanondo Chattopadhyay. To represent that painful experiences, Indian artist, Pratik Bhattacharya, has collected the images/photographs from NGOs of that area and tried to make wounds on those photographs by burning wax. He attempted that because those memories in the pictures are painful to the people. There are some significant images which play an iconic role in representing sufferings of citizens. Bhattacharya made a display at the open studio day on a wall inside the house with those Images and documents with made scar marks.

Besides, the local postcards are distributed among the people that have the printed images of four generations of that house on one side and on the other a handwritten name of nine generations. It’s basically done to spread the history of that house which is around 400 years old. People hardly know about the last three generations. They don’t realize the fact that the house has a memory of 35 generations. The artists have included the female figures as well in the family tree on the postcards. 

Title: War Wounds
Artist: Pratik Bhattacharya
Time and place: Third Episode of UORNTO Residential Art Exchange Program at Shatkhira 2014

Content developed by Towhid Islam Khan 
(URONTO artist Community)